[A/S] Aluminum wire

["Philip Piper" <pmpiper@xxxxxxxxxxx>]

After thinking about it for a couple of days I now remember how the problem 
was fixed. The aluminum wire was cut back to a point where only clean 
undamaged wire was seen. Strip the insulation about 1/2" using a whittling 
motion. Don't ring the insulation with a knife and cause a annular cut on 
the wire which can cause the end to break off (always a good practice).
Buy the high quality AL/CU 'square-wire spring inserted wire nuts' to fit 2 
#12 wires. Fill the wire nut with 'electrical joint compound'. Cut a length 
of insulated 12 GA. copper wire to match (+ 2") the length cut out. Strip 
back both ends as described above. Hold the ends of the aluminum and copper 
wire together and screw the wire nut over them as tight as you can by hand. 
Use the exposed end of the copper wire to connect to the NEW CU/AL device, 
don't use the old device. You can do both the black and white wires but 
usually only the white (ground) is affected. After the above procedure was 
followed I don't recall any more problems with that device. If I had the 
inner shell out of the way I would replace the wireing completly.
Phil Piper