Who would have thought...

[Greg J]

Now fair warning, this might be a bit gross. But bare with me.
I'm driving a Vauxhall Insignia and one day after flying I felt a bit ill. Didn't managed to stop in time and some of my returned fluids got onto steering wheel and bits around it.
Now, car drives and works fine afterwards - I got it all cleaned up inside. However, I noticed that the right hand stalk doesn't do much when you push it or pull it (to spray front or rear window). Bit surprised, I took the stalk out.
And what I discovered... Apparently the juices ate the copper on the board. Literally ate it. The vaseline (or whatever it is) that is suppose to provide lubrication turned into a green paste and traces were nowhere to be found.
I tried fixing it, but to no avail. Managed to score used stalk on ebay for £20, and replaced the board.

I know car manufacturers are doing a lot great work to make things resistant to elements, but I don't think anyone ever thought of this scenario. I'm sharing this story, in case someone is designing something to operate in such possibility. I would never have thought that the traces on board can be so fragile to bodily juices. But there you go.

Nice two before/after pics for you's.

[Excavatoree]

Hydrochloric acid is powerful stuff.   In chemistry class, we did experiments with HCL diluted to the concentration of stomach acid.  (.1 Mole, but don't take my word for it, that's my very poor memory)   My cat has made some"etching" into my concrete floor when I didn't clean something up in time.

[Greg J]

Yeah, I do realise that acid is not exactly friendly. Just didn't realise that it can do exactly that in the car.
I suppose, a little seal over the stalk would probably help in this case. Or even design using sealed switches rather then a fiddly board. Luckily cost of replacing it is not high.

I wonder if anyone managed to defunct their laptop or other piece of home appliance in similar way :-)

[SeanB]

It is a DaeWontGo, so they probably thought the extra 0.1c cost of the rubber bootie would kill the profit in the spares market. Actually any ionic liquid there with the always 12V present on the wiring will corrode the switch in a short time, it really only needs salt spray from being on the beach, combined with getting into the car wet and touching the stalk with a very wet hand to do this. You can get "pattern parts" for most of those switches. Some are the same switch, made on the same line using the same parts but packed in a different box.

[T3sl4co1l]

Disappointing pics.  The first one should've been a sandwich, or whatever.  The second, well...


Yep, stomach acid isn't very strong at all.  Much lower pH than most any organic acid, but hardly enough to, say, make steel fizz and dissolve on the spot.

That said, given a little time, it doesn't take much to dissolve most any metal.  If it doesn't fizz hydrogen gas, oxygen will slowly dissolve into the liquid and do the work.  The acid serves to dissolve or displace the resulting oxidation.  This is the case with copper, which is otherwise noble (it does not chemically displace hydrogen from water).

Tim

[elgonzo]

It is a DaeWontGo...

You are so wrong...

The Insignia was developed and is produced by a German car maker.
And as everybody knows, German cars are the best. Especially if they come from a company whose abbreviated name starts with G and ends with M... 

[Greg J]

Exactly, it's Opel/Vauxhal/GM .
I'm actually thinking that I made it far worse by trying to 'work' the stalk aft and back. Thinking that this will clean it. It probably accelerated the reaction. And provided the juices fresh piece of trace each time. Heh...
Oh well. I just hope this will be useful warning for someone else in the future :-)

[KJDS]

Now I remember why I pushed my friend Alan's head out of the window and wound it up so he couldn't get it back into the car for that 12 mile journey back from the pub.

[SeanB]

I bought a replacement for a Golf, and the OEM was $300, and out of stock. The pattern part was $20, and I bought 2, just in case I needed another one. This was for a friend, where the turn signals and headlight controls are integrated into the one stalk, and his had started sending out smoke signals when you turned at night with the lights on. He wanted to bodge in a switch in the dash, but I got the stalk and installed it in under 10 minutes, most of that time spent "persuading" the 19mm nut holding the steering wheel to let go, and to pop the wheel off the taper spline it was on. 5 Posidrive screws later and 3 Torx drive screws the stalk came off. Very crispy inside with the contacts melted through the glass filled nylon housing.

On a side note do not place the pizza and 6 beers when the car is doing 80 plus. the airflow tends to deposit it all over the side of the car, and back through the window as well.

[Greg J]

Yeah, replacing it in Insignia is not that hard - but it's pulling underwear through head sort of exercise. You have to turn wheel half way both ways, unlatch a bit on side that is exposed by steering wheel, then undo a screw underneath, and pull stuff apart. Quite odd - I had to buy Haines manual to find out and even that is horrible for Insignia. I had Vectra previously and it was much easier to play around with.

Taking apart the broken stalk last night, everything is very well protected but the bit that does the up/down/aft/for . The buttons and switches on the stalk itself are bloody indestructible. I had to persuade it with a hammer to get inside.

[SeanB]

No need to buy the Ashtray manual, a quick look through the chocolate factory images would have given you the info. At least i am lucky in that I do not have a vehicle with airbags, as those are a pain to remove, you have to disconnect the battery ( and ask for the radio code first otherwise it gets bricked) and wait for a half hour with ignition on to discharge, or turn lights on to park for the same time. Then to get those clock springs off and back correctly on some vehicles........

Was easy on the 1978 Toyota van, all I needed was a thread file to fix the previous owner's cross threading the wheel and his bodge of a wrong nut as well. Few minutes of filing and a nut from the scrapyard donor vehicle and the new one fitted. Too bad about the indicators now no longer self cancelling, but that is easy to fix with a very loud flasher relay. Getting the old one off the first time required a hammer and a lot of gentle persuasion.

[madshaman]

Good-bye Ferric Chloride, hello fingers down my throat.  Woot!


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[SeanB]

Good-bye Ferric Chloride, hello fingers down my throat.  Woot!


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Bad for the teeth, makes you look like a recovering Bulimic after a while.

[dexters_lab]

must remember, dont vom in the car!

also, do alps use hamsters to route their pcbs?