Removing Battery Corrosion and Straightening Bent Lights

This is part of a series of posts I've written about common Maglite repairs. I've also covered the following topics:

Stuck End Caps
Stuck Batteries
Stuck Retaining Rings
Switch Removal and Stuck Switches
Switch Disassembly and Repair

Disclaimer: I'll start out by saying that these repairs are tedious and challenging. It is very rewarding to make an old Maglite light again though. If you have a special light and don't feel up to the challenge I do restorations and custom work on most vintage flashlights. My contact info is at the right side of the page.

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So I figured I'd do a post on a little restoration work I did recently. I found an old TM bezel, end cap, spring and some parts on everyone's favorite auction site. These bezels have a TM next to the Mag-Lite logo and are stamped instead of laser etched. They typically belong to 1986 and prior lights. I'm always on the hunt for parts and I figured I might use them when restoring another light so I picked them up for $6 plus shipping. I always message sellers to get either a backstory or a lead on more items. Well, it was my lucky day! She said she had all of the parts for the light but that the barrel was very corroded and bent so she thought they were junk. They probably were to most people. I paid $1 extra shipping and they were on their way. This is what the light looked like when I got it:

Nasty! But no worries, I've tackled worse. The switch appears to be original to the light and works well so that's a bonus because these old style switches are $15. I'm guessing that the end cap was stuck here due to battery corrosion so someone put it in a vice and used pliers to get the end cap off. That's absolutely the wrong way to do it. No matter though, what's done is done. You can see all of the alkaline that has dried up and corroded the barrel. A thorough, week long soaking in vinegar will neutralize the alkaline base and break all of that loose.

It's important to get all of the alkaline out so it doesn't cause any more corrosion or flake off and foul up the switch. I empty the vinegar out of the light and put in fresh vinegar every 2 days for about a week or so. You can see that it is has corroded off a fair amount of aluminum. That's ok though because there should still be enough thread to provide a good seal on the end cap and a good connection for the electrical circuit. I use an Xacto knife and a stainless steel bristled wire bore brush to remove the excess alkaline. 

I use a 1.5" diameter stainless steel bristle tube/bore brush. These can be picked up for around $10 for 6. What I'll do is clip the loop end off of one of them and use a power drill on a very low speed to reach and clean hard to reach places. This can also be done by hand but it will be very time consuming. Shown below is my setup along with a couple of new brushes to see what they look like. You'll want to make sure the inside of the light is wet while doing this so there's not a ton of hazardous alkaline dust. I rinse after every few passes to remove the alkaline that has flaked off and keep the bore wet. 

Now onto the out of round end. I use just a cheap exhaust pipe expander. Any one that has a range of 1.25" to 1.75" will do. This one happened to be $9 on Amazon. Don't mind the awful reviews, we're just bending 0.140" wall thickness aluminum. This is much easier than any steel tail pipe. We're also not really expanding it, just bring it back into round.

Don't crank down on it too hard and just do a little at a time and then check it. The object is not too expand the entire end but just to bring the flat part back into round so the end cap will thread in easily. I should have mentioned that the switch had to be removed before soaking in vinegar. Now it's time to put the switch back in. These old style switches are threaded into the barrel and then held in place with the small allen key bolt that is tightened and loosened through the switch hole. There are plenty of videos on YouTube for removing and installing Maglite switches so I won't cover it in this post. What does help on the older lights is the plastic spanner tool that Maglite makes. It's the blue tool in the center below. It is Mag Instrument Part # 112-000-001. Alternatively you can use a pair of needed nose pliers to turn the retaining ring on these older style switches.

Finally, I'll install all of the O-Rings, one on the bezel, one on the tail cap, and one on the barrel up by the head. I use a thin film of Haynes Lubrifilm Grease on all threads and o-rings. It eliminates the squeaky noise and helps to waterproof the light. All Maglites come new with a similar grease. It can be found for a few $$$ on Amazon.

And Voila! This old Maglite burns again!

So, most people would wonder; why bother restoring this Maglite when you can get a new one for $22? Well mainly because this is my hobby but also because this light is a very early Maglite. It's not super rare but fairly uncommon. It has "Paten Pending" stamped on the barrel on the opposite side of the serial number which puts this light before mid 1981 because the Maglite patent was not yet approved. Note that it is misspelled and all early lights have this misspelling so it's technically not an error even though some collectors pass these lights off as such.

The light is missing some of the features of the 1979 lights. So it is either a 1980 or early 1981 light. Check out my Quick Dating Guide if you're interested in determining the dates of your lights. It has a serial number of 20070516 so it is the 70,516th 2D Maglite ever made. To put that in perspective current production is around 50,000,000 so this is fairly early in Mag Instrument's production.

I also restored this light because I couldn't bare to see it tossed. This light is 37 years old and was definitely someone's trusty companion for a long time. While the seller did not have any backstory on it I can only imagine what this light has seen over the years. To toss it would be doing it a great disservice. Was it carried by a small town cop? Used for weekend adventures and camping trips? Did it roll around in an old Chevy Blazer for road trips? I can only guess but they all sound good to me!

As always I'm looking to buy Vari-Beams and Vintage/Rare Mags. Please let me know if you have any, top dollar paid.