I had the same problem. No lights between Joshua Tree and Big Sur,
so no night driving. I took the switch out in Big Sur State Park
(it was dark due to the California power shortage) and cleaned the
contacts with a pocket knife. No problem since. Fortunately,
the switch is clipped together (not glued or sealed), so it can be opened
rather easily. Be careful, though, since there are a half-dozen or
so tiny springs in it that can and do fly in all directions. There
is also a steel ball bearing that helps the rocker switch hold its
position which I lost it in the leaves and gravel of the camp
ground. Very frustrating. The switch worked anyway, and I replaced
the ball when I got home with a bearing from a bicycle wheel. When
I took at apart at home to replace the bearing I also cleaned the
contacts again with some fine sandpaper. It was clear, by the
way, that some of the contacts were burned from sixteen years use.
If you do take it apart, do it slowly and carefully noting the position
of the pieces. It's somewhat of a Chinese puzzle to put back
together again.
Good luck.
Charles
'85 Westy
At 06:38 AM 9/16/01 -0400, Kenneth D Lewis wrote:
Bob;
First check the ground
clusters behind the fuse block. These tend to corrode due to leaky
windshields. Most likely is the under-engineered light switch. Check out
my web page on how I added relays to cure this problem. On an electrical
competence level of complexity between five(deals with complexe
electronics daily) and zero(doesn't know which end of a soldering iron to
hold) I rate it at three and a half.
On Sat, 15 Sep 2001 23:49:08 -0600 Bob Stevens
<mtbikerbob@MSN.COM>
writes:
- First time poster/reader....yur all a blast...good info. My problem:
my headlights go out periodically on long trips. I'll go into a gas
station to fill and turn things on and only get parking lights. No wipers
or right stalk lever functions at all. Pulling back on left stalk and
holding it gets me brights. Lights come back on usually at end of day of
use of vehicle, when it gets dark. Weird thing happens: if I hold the
left stalk/high beams on and mess with the right stalk, the wipers
finally come on then I can turn on the headlights with the dash switch.
- This happened a year ago an I replaced both stalk levers and have
only recently been getting this light thing again. Whaddya think?
- Bob Stevens
- Don't count the days,
- make the days count!
- Get your FREE download of MSN Explorer at
http://explorer.msn.com
-