On Thanksgiving night, during the evening ride home, I successfully fried the headlight switch by having the brights on too long. I was aware of the weakness of the switch thanks to this list, and had mapped out the upgrade I wanted to try. Through Allistair Bell ( http://members.shaw.ca/albell/mods/lightcircuit.html ), vanagon.com ( http://www.vanagon.com/info/articles/upgrades/headlight-relay/ ), and Ken Lewis himself ( http://neksiwel.20m.com/custom.html ) I worked yesterday at installing the relay setup featured there. Unfortunately, I ran into a snag: upon first start up - using the old fried headlight switch which was stuck "ON", I could hear the relays clicking a few times, but no lights. Then the intermittent clicking stopped. Today I retraced everything - finding a few loose crimps - including the power source at the 30 spade terminal on one relay itself. This direct connection from the battery had a fine white powder inside the crimping - is this oxidation, or whatever - normal? I reconnected the power & tried it again. No relay activation; no lights. Thinking that perhaps the old overheated switch may be allowing me to misdiagnose, I used a volt meter to connect the 30 and the 56 on the headlight switch - which was pulling 12V. (See Bentley 97.111) I'm guessing I fried the relays? *sigh* Why didn't the 30A fuse before the relays blow instead? Any other sagely advice to prevent me from doing this again? Any help would be appreciated. -- In "V"anagon "W"esty Love, Light, & Laughter, Jay '87 Westy (345K miles) Springfield, MO |
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