AA Maglite disassembly

[Chainsaw]

Hi All,

One of my AA maglites has had one of the batteries leak (left in a drawer for too long) and as a result one of the batteries is stuck in there and won't come out with 'gentle' persuasion. Anyone any good links or info on how to remove the plastic cap assembly at the top end, where the bulb goes, to allow me to poke the battery out and clean and lube the area? I know this is the switch assembly and it's not just a 'howk' out. I found this page which would make the plain english campaign weep and also seems to require a special tool but anyone done this before with success??

Cheers,

Alan

 

[sapper1]

The special tool wont work with the battery still in.

Try leaving it in a bowl of boiling water for a bit ,this should dissolve the corrosion and then the battery should fall out with a sharp downward tap on a table.Take the bulb out before you soak it.

 

[Ben Trout]

Hi.

I seem to have had just about every size Maglite apart. I've got an AA so it's apart on the desk now.

I've had luck with soaking in lemon juice after alkaline battery leaks. Alternatively WD40 or similar should help. Also a few minutes in boiling water to expand the aluminum might be worth a try.

Anyway you will need a wide, slender tool. A penknife blade works fine. A drift of less than 9mm diameter and a soft faced mallet. A larger drift makes life easier for reassembly, I used a 3/8" socket set extension bar of about 150mm/6" length. A container for putting small bits in will be helpful.

Take off head and tailcap.
Take out bulb.
Refering to the diagram you found lever off part 11 with penknife. A few wiggles on either side should do the job.
Now you will have to hammer or press out the 'switch component assembly' with 9mm drift.
Once this is out check that you have both of the metal contacts, parts 13 and 14. (I had one of these (14) disappear from an ASSEMBLED torch, took a while to trace that fault and I never figured out how it went missing)

Before reassembling clean and dry the body then check that batteries will slide inside the body. You might have to do some work with emery cloth wrapped around a drift to clean it up.
Clean up all the contacts.

Make sure conatcts, parts 13 and 14 are in part 15 properly.
Slide the assembly into the body and push right up with a drift.
Keep pressure on the drift and push on part 11.
Batteries and the other bits on and give it a go.

Hope that helps. Give me a shout if there are any photos that would be useful. There is a company in this country who supply spare parts and I found them pretty good. I'll dig out their details if you like.

Have fun,

Ben

 

[Chinkapin]

Keep a thin coat of Vasoline (petroleum jelly) on the rubber O-rings. The flashlight will not fail to come apart easily and the beam will adjust easily. It will not hurt the O-rings. Of course all bets are off if the batteries rupture!

 

[steven andrews]

Chainsaw, if you send the Maglite into Burton McCall, who are the UK distributers, they will most likely replace your Mini Mag for free.
Their customer service is excellent.

 

[Chinkapin]

Chainsaw, Steven Andrews is right. Some years ago my 5 D-cell Mag-Lite had its batteries rupture, and I returned it to Mag-Lite and they replaced it. They seemed a bit grumpy about it and tried to blame it on me or the battery company but nevetheless replaced it without any actual hassle.

 

[RAPPLEBY2000]

this happened to mine a few years ago, but the acid also "welded" the tail cap on!
My boss at the time managed to get the cap off with a bench vice and a lot of leverage!
it ended up that the cap was slightly warped and the torch never worked well I eventually gave up and bought a new one!

you are lucky to have rescued it before this happened!
apparently copper grease works well too!

 

[oetzi]

I did this disassembly a lot of time for customers who hd experienced leaky batteries.
It all depends where and how much the contents of the leaky cell run to.
If you cant get off the tailcap easily , its far too much hassle to proceed.
If the top end looks corroded when unscrewing the head, dito.
The stuck cell can be removed by heating the main body with a gas burner and the hammering everything out with some kind of rod from the narrow-holed end (the one where you removed part 11).
Then ream the inside with sandpaper to remove all the oxidated aluminium etc.
Then check whether the rim on the narrow hole is shiny metal or corroded, too. It has to be free of any corrosion or part 14 of the switch wont make contact.
Maybe at the bottom end of the lamp the tailcap is corroded, too. The thread and the inside, where the spring sits, must be clean, too.
A new switch can be fitted in place with any bog standard pencil, you wont need mthe special tool. The switch itself is not that expensive, we sell it for € 5,-
Generally IMO, these lamps are not worth working on them. Maglite missed the LED and now cant catch on.
These ones or similar are so much better alternatives:
http://www.batteryjunction.com/led-lenser-coast-p5.html
We have three different of these in the shop (P3,P5,P7) and they are so much better in every way than the old Mini Maglite.

 

[Silverclaws]

So, this is common with maglites, I thought it was just me that didn't have any luck with them. My first, and second maglite, the mini variety succumbed to the leaky battery syndrome, and the batteries were the duracell, who at one time said their batteries don't leak.

I got them apart, unseized them, but they were never much use after that. Moved into Ledlenser now, so far so good.

Incidently, when I converted my mini mag to the LED light, I noticed one of the triangular bulb contacts had corroded to the point that the bulb of the led light contact stalks would not go down the triangular contact.Attempting to drill out the corrosion ended up in the contact disappearing. I made new contacts for both sides using fine silver, a bit tricky, but they work.

The ledlenser, is the V2 professional aviator, got because first, it had what I needed, a bright white light, and a switchable red light for night time reading use. In the dark, the different switches can be found, due to one of them being textured, the second reason,was it was cheap, a pre owned unit from fleabay. The build quality, really, is quite astounding.

Having found these things useful, I am after the tent light glowstick model now.

 

[Crafty]

If you can't get it out, Maglite will replace it - I know somebody who used a Maglite when he was a child untill the batteries exploded, 20 years later he sent it to Maglite as a joke to see if they would replace it and guess what, they did.