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Date:         Sun, 12 Oct 2008 14:45:15 -0700
Reply-To:     Luke Bakken <luke.bakken@GMAIL.COM>
Sender:       Vanagon Mailing List <vanagon@gerry.vanagon.com>
From:         Luke Bakken <luke.bakken@GMAIL.COM>
Subject:      Both low beams burnt out at same time?
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1

Hello Vanagon list,

I've been a lurker here since purchasing an '89 Westy Syncro last March and I've learned a LOT about my van just by following this list.

A couple weeks ago my low beams both went out and I have just diagnosed the problem as *both* bulbs low-beam filaments gone bad. How common is this situation? The van has a Van-Cafe relay kit installed and I checked that out thoroughly with my voltage tester and everything appears to be working OK - the low beam filament gets power at the headlight bulb plug and then the high beam filament gets power when the high beams are turned on. I'm assuming the correct behavior is for the low beam side to switch off when the high beams come on.

The main thing that I noticed while testing all this out is that there are two places where it appears that the circuit overheated. The first place is where the high-beam relay was spliced into the white wire between the high-beam switch and the fuse - the splice itself is browned a bit. The second place is on the neutral wire side of the left-front headlight plug - it is pretty blackened as well. When the van was upgraded with the relay kit and higher wattage bulbs should the plugs have been upgraded as well? The Van-Cafe web site mentions this: "We also recommend cleaning up ground connections for you headlight wiring harness as poor grounds are common cause of burnt wiring/connectors, whether using stock or high output bulbs." I'm assuming this could have been a cause of all this as well.

http://www.van-cafe.com/home/van/page_451_584/hella_9004_80100_watt_low_beam.html

Thanks a lot! Luke

P.S. - who runs gerry.vanagon.com? I work as a professional software engineer and would be willing to help out with speeding up the vanagon search archives.


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