[T3] Lack of high beam and turn signals

[Jim Adney]

On 13 May 2011 at 21:46, Dave wrote:

> Fix the ground issue first. Bad grounds will cause all kinds of funky
> behavior. I don't have any experience with a 71,  but if the car is
> wired like the Bentley schematic with a single ground point for all
> the idiot, dash lights, the turn signal switch and the various light
> switches,  a 54 ohm resistance in the main ground to body could
> definitely cause most of the issues. 

I totally agree with this, but I always wince a bit when people start 
talking about cleaning the terminals. While there's  nothing wrong 
with cleanliness, it's easy to get carried away and do more harm than 
good, often while missing the real problem.

The main point to note is that 99% of the conduction in our 1/4" 
spade connectors is done where edges of the female connector curl 
over and meet the flat male spade. There's almost nothing you can do 
to clean those 2 long thin contact areas. Don't even try. If you hook 
those curled edges and open up the curl, you'll have to bend it back 
and you can only do that a few times before they break.

Sure, you can clean the male connectors. They're much harder to 
damage and you can actually get to the contact faces.

OTOH, these contacts actually do clean themselves as they slide 
together, so cleaning is mostly an exercise with one's karma, and not 
so much a productive effort.

There IS one thing that helps: unplug and reconnect each connection. 
They're self cleaning when you do that. You'll also develop a feel 
for how tight they should be, so if you find a loose one, CAREFULLY 
squeeze it and try again.

Avoid steel wool. It will leave bits of conductive material behind, 
which may give you future fits. Scotchbrite is fine, but none of this 
is necessary.

For the record, going thru a car to clean all the contacts is a 
process I've NEVER done, and I've never fixed any problem by cleaning 
a dirty contact. EXCEPTION: I use a dental tool to scrape the spring 
contacts at the base of TS, parking, and brake light bulbe. Those get 
corroded over time and the spring pressure there is much less than in 
the 1/4" spade connectors. I put a dab of grease on those connections 
when I reassemble things, and that seems to retard future corrosion. 
Corrosion at those bulb contacts is much more common in the front 
parking and TS bulb bases.

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Jim Adney, jadney at vwtype3.org
Madison, Wisconsin, USA
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