I dropped the dashboard in to see how room I'd have for the evaporator after I cut the hole in the foot box. The right stalk on the on the steering column projects in front of the middle binnacle where the controls and/or a tablet will go... yeah, that's about what you'd expect in a race-derived car. In addition, the stalk has a large number of windshield wiper settings and the wiper motor only has two speeds. My solution was to replace it with a smaller
80173 switch from Painless Performance.
The stalk was very easy to remove once I figured out how it was done. There are two recessed tabs, one the top and one on the bottom. You simply depress the top one with a flat screw driver and the bottom one with your finger and pull. Separating it from the wiring harness was also easy; cut one wire tie and pop off one reusable wire clamp.
The next challenge was figuring out how to mount the switch. My first attempt was to 3D print two round pieces that sandwiched the switch around the steering column's upper and lower plastic covers. While it was easy to make the parts, it's a pain in the ass to install the switch and I will have the covers on and off a bunch of times during the build.
There's a reason the OEM version is mounted to the steering column, so that's what I decided to do. In the end it was a lot more difficult than I first thought - first time that's happened on this project LOL. The most challenging parts were the two clips (I'd like to thank GM for making them different shapes) and figuring out the exact position switch which requires a compound plane. I printed it in two pieces; the main box and a cover which completely hides the shaft and nuts.
The following pictures show the assembled module. I thought about designing clips to hold the cover in place, but after the first two clips I am done with clips for a while and the screws and nylocs work just as well.
As can be seen above, the switch protrudes through the side of 3D box. This requires a little material to be removed from the plastic receiver on the steering column. This is easily achieved with a sanding drum on a Dremel. The spade connectors also need to be cut shorter to fit. The plan is to solder a wire to them and crimp a connector on the other end. This is exactly what the OEM version does.
The following video shows how easy it is to install and remove the module. Listen carefully for the click... that has to be the most gratifying click in my entire life ;-)
I can't get video to embed, so here it is:
IMG 1724 - YouTube
In the picture below I'm holding the top and bottom steering column covers in place. The switch doesn't look like it's centered in the hole, but that's just an optical illusion.