Climate control potentiometer part?

I have a few possibilities ordered. Surprisingly it only uses 3 pins for the circuit. The rest are not used. It's the back bracket, size, detents, flat orientation on shaft and resistance of 3k ohms that need to match up. I also have some coming from China.

Either way without having a custom batch made up it's not going to be an exact replacement. I've been in touch with State Potentiometer about custom making a batch. $$$$ waiting to hear back

 

I'd be fascinated if anyone was able to solve this problem. While used climate control boards don't break the bank I like the idea of repairing the smallest unit possible and in this case, like many others in this thread, the pot on my climate control is failing. I'll be diggin in and seeing if I can find a solution as well.

 

I don't think I read this whole thread at first, but I have now. Has anyone just tried a soldering a standard 3-pin ~3kohm pot to the 3 pins mentioned? You won't have the detents but I'd be surprised if it was that precise. Just bend the pins downwards and solder to their 3 respective pins (quoted below).

2k pack, pretty cheap: https://www.ebay.com/itm/391912960238 (closest alternative cheap version I saw was 5k. If it's just measuring a voltage divide, I'd get that one instead for current safety)
These style are on the smaller side from experience, but they may be too thick to fit in the space (someone else will have to confirm). Specs should be close to:


Even if you want to dremel the shaft to get the OEM knob to fit, and do some gluing, hell of a lot cheaper than the alternatives posted.