Lee Taylor

I am right in the middle of re-building a couple of 40 yr old Sullivan Starter Switches. These two motors have very little wear on them but the years have taken a toll on the switches. I am in the process of finding some rubber I can use to make the switches work properly. At the moment I am looking at hollow weather-stripping. I am sure Sullivan sold millions of these starters so I thought I would post a little information that may prove helpful to others that own some very old Sullivan Starters with switches that have degraded over the decades. (yes I am an old school nitro guy and no I do not care if nitro is dead or there is little interest. I go my own direction)

Well here they are. Two of the Sullivan's that were SO popular back-in-the day


These pads are not good and longer. They have degraded over time. No more compression and no more return


Side view of squish-pads. Compression pads would be a more sophisticated call-out for a bill-of-materials.


The over-all dimension, outer face to outer face, is very close to .250". The conductor thickness is approximately .020"


The sleeve appears to be a hollow core rectangular weather seal. Over-all dimensions 0.5" x 1.0"

GREG DOE

You can buy new ones from Sullivan.

Lee Taylor

Hello Greg... Hope you are well today. Not sure I want to pursue a new one at this time. Yes a new one would be a fix and thank you for that suggestion. Due to my background I tend to look deeper. Aging of the "compressible pads" is the cause of the problem. The material selected for the initial design has aged and hardened. There are materials available that would have been a better choice. I do not think the initial design criteria included environment, aging, and cycling. Trust me when I say, sometimes it is necessary to put products on the market when you have a workable model. Lengthy testing sometimes has to wait

IF the demand for this product were to return, the Sullivan company should make a design improvement

BelAirBob

Lee Taylor

Hello Bob. Hope things are going well for you in MD. Thank you for forwarding this to the folks at Sullivan. You can tell them for me that it is perfectly fine if the contact me. It is good to know that Sullivan changed the parts 15 years ago. I had no idea they were still in business.

My Sullivan starters have quite a bit of age on them but have little mileage on them. The brushes look very good. I am very happy with them. I think overall it is a solid design. Repairing this switch is a simple and inexpensive matter to me. I will be happy to have two good solid engine starters when I finish

Lee Taylor

Here is the product I will be using to replace the "compression pads". My concern is that it will compress too easily. I am also concerned that it will not have enough "return strength" to break the electrical circuit.

Here is the new compression pad material I purchased off Amazon



Here is a newly designed switch I found in England. They have not responded yet


I reached out to Sullivan Products but they have not responded yet

Fred@Sullivan

Lee,
I received this from BelAirBob a few weeks ago and sent him a response for you. I just got back from Germany and wanted to thank you for keeping our older starters running. As I told Bob we have a newer design that does not use the foam anymore. It appears to be the picture above. If you need any parts feel free to contact me and thanks again for keeping them alive.
Fred

Fred@Sullivan

Lee,
I received this from BelAirBob a few weeks ago and sent him a response for you. I just got back from Germany and wanted to thank you for keeping our older starters running. As I told Bob we have a newer design that does not use the foam anymore. It appears to be the picture above. If you need any parts feel free to contact me and thanks again for keeping them alive.
Fred

Lee Taylor

Yes and thank you. The Sullivan design from back in the day was excellent (except for some aging concerns with the compression pads). One of your co-workers has contacted me and I will be placing an order for the "deflected metal" type switch. I like it better than the compressible foam. I am sure some old die-hards like myself will be contacting you. Replacing switches is certainly not a great amount of business for Sullivan but the product is fantastic.

Lee Taylor

08-24-19........YEA! Sullivan switch assembly arrived today. From a design perspective it looks GREAT!

https://www.rcgroups.com/forums/show...&postcount=150

Lee Taylor

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Very happy to receive some replacement Sullivan Switches. They look
great from a design perspective!
.

Lee Taylor

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I wired-in this switch they sent me. The starter works GREAT! From a design perspective it feels solid as a rock. I am VERY happy with this switch!
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Lee Taylor

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A blow-up photo
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