reverse polarity with a twist.

Wizard I hacked up your diagram and please realize I can't draw to save my life.  This is the configuration that ended up working out.  Valve 2 is down, valve 1 is up.  The orange wire out of the switch is hot when any of the switches are up.  When the switch is down the signal goes through the relay at rest to activate valve 2.  The relay on valve one has the signal interupted at rest so there is no feedback.  When the switch is up both valves energize from the orange wire letting the signal through to valve one and interupting valve two.  I figured it out in the shower this morning, go figure.  It works like a champ and the joystick works as well taking the whole car up or down with the joystick. 

Thanks for all of your help.  I really feel that situations like this is where a discussion board is priceless.  You can keep sounding ideas off of like minded people until someone finds the solution.

Great.

Where did this orange wire come from.

It would have been nice to have known about that before aswell as the application.

Any time you need me just Email me hotwaterwizard@aol.com

You can instant message me on AOL or AIM at my nickname hotwaterwizard

John, I think all of us were tired and skipping posts and posting at the same time last night.  If you look back at the end of page 2, I described the switch set up and application and on the page 3 right before your diagram I described the extra two wires. 

Again I appreciate all of your help working through this.  It works great and looks like it came from the factory in 1965.

I fixed up the Drawing of your final design for you. Nice job.

The problem with using the signal wire to activate the valves it I still ended up with that feedback across the coil of the relays as well.  As soon as you activated one relay the other one would energize at the same time.  Using the orange wire eliminated that.  I still don't understand why there was enough reverse polarity energy feeding back to activate the oposite coil so much, but sometimes you just have to work around a problem. 

As for the diagram, I don't deal with diagrams much, but I think it is right.  When the switch is down the signal flows throught the 87a to the down valve.  When any switch is up the orange wire is hot, which energizes both relays that disconnects valve 2 and lets the signal to open valve 1 through.

It's amazing how when describing a problem to other people, when they can't see the situation, how hard it is to make sure that everybody understands the whole picture.  Because I am looking at it,  I take for granted that the other person knows what I am doing, and where I want it to go.  There are times that I think I have given enough of a description, to solve the problem, but without being right there it is tough to grasp the little things that the person who is present sees.  I do appreciate everybody's help though, it really helps get the mind going outside the box of the problem that you are staring blindly at when you have other educated opinions.  I knew this could be done, but it was kicking my a**.