Classic/Antique Car Repair: light socket repair, light sockets, constant contact

Question
I am trying to preserve a 1968 Oldsmobile W-34 Toronado, one of 111 made.
The inboard passenger side taillight is intermitent. When I removed the lense, I found a little corrosion in all of the light sockets, but not bad. I cleaned it up with a wire brush and repainted the housing silver. Sprayed all sockets with an electrical contact cleaner and installed new bulbs. The inboard bulb only lights on one of the two lugs. One of the lugs is no longer springy, thus failing to make full and constant contact.  How do I replace the spring on the lug.
so that I don't have to cut the harness and splice on a new socket? This car is too rare to butcher.

Thanks

Answer
I understand your reluctance to cut the wire, but you may have no alternative.  The only other way to do it, and I'll bet you've already considered it, is to push the contact through from the back far enough so you can get at the wire from behind the contact, unsolder the contact from the wire, install a new spring (the guts of cheap "clicker type" ball pens often have a spring of about the right diameter and tension, but you'll have to cut it to length), and then re-solder the contact.  

You could try to thread the replacement spring around the wire also - maybe you'll be successful without having to remove the contact.

You can also buy a replacement bulb socket, take it apart, and use whichever part you need to repair your old one.

If you have to splice in a new wire, buy heat shrink tubing in black from Radio Shack to cover the solder joint, and use the "Western Electric" type splice, which leaves no bump on the repaired wire.  You'll need a heat gun or a very powerful hair dryer to shrink the tubing.  It will be almost undetectable.

Good luck!

Dick