Date: Tue, 27 Sep 2005 05:55:25 EDT
Reply-To: RAlanen@AOL.COM
Sender: Vanagon Mailing List <vanagon@gerry.vanagon.com>
From: Frank Condelli <RAlanen@AOL.COM>
Subject: Re: Headlight Failure
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="US-ASCII"
In a message dated 26/09/2005 12:25:55 PM Eastern Daylight Time,
LISTSERV@GERRY.VANAGON.COM writes:
Hi Everyone,
So I've been having headlight trouble for a little while and today they sort
of quit on me. I have had the relays and brighter bulbs installed for
almost two years now with no problems what so ever and pretty good light.
So here is the problem, in the low beam setting I now have the two outers
on but at about 40% the normal brightness and sometimes the right inner also
glows a little on the low beam setting. Now if I switch to high beams the
first problem is the high beam indicator does not light up, it did
yesterday and only the right side inner lights up nother out of the left. I
have swapped all the bulbs and they all work in the working light so I know
that is not it. It has not blown any fuses. I replaced one of the relays
with a spare and still nothing All the wiring for the relays look good but
on the left side headlight it looks like the pig tale got a little hot and
has some black plastic but still makes contact and is not very bad and that
is the bulb that works. Anyone ever run into this before? Or have any tips?
Kevin, most likely the pigtail sockets have gotten overheated from poor
contact. The best thing to do is to replace the two sockets with new ones. They
are available from most any good FLAPS. Make sure to make good watertight
splices using heat shrink butt connectors. Use Dielectric grease on the
contact of the bulb to the socket and you will not have any more problems. BTDT a
few times now on mine and customers vans.
Cheers,
Frank Condelli
Almonte, Ontario, Canada
'87 Westy, '90 Carat, '87 Wolfsburg (Forsale) & Lionel Trains
Vanagon/Vanagon Westfalia Service in the Ottawa Valley
_Frank Condelli & Associates_ (http://members.aol.com/Fkc43/busindex.html)
_Vanagon Stainless Steel Exhaust Systems_
(http://members.aol.com/Fkc43/stebro.htm) 1
_BusFusion_ (http://members.aol.com/BusFusion/bfhome.htm) a VW Camper
camping event, Almonte, ON, June 08 ~ 11, 2006
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