I just had a similar experience with the wipers in my 85 Westy.

The connection to the fuse holder was OK but someone added a male/female
spade connecter (perhaps to lengthen the wire from a previous repair?) and
that was the "bad" connection.  It had gotten hot enough to begin melting
the plastic of the insulated connectors and the short piece of aftermarket
wire between it and the fuse holder.  The melted and blackened connectors
were fused together and looked like they could have burst into real flames
at any moment.

Please disconnect the battery before dropping the fuse panel down and poking
around in there!  While you have the fuse panel lowered be sure to inspect
and clean the multi-pin ground points above and to the left of the fuse
panel.

-----Original Message-----
From: Vanagon Mailing List [mailto:vanagon@gerry.vanagon.com] On Behalf Of
Jeff Lincoln
Sent: Monday, July 26, 2010 10:06 AM
To: vanagon@GERRY.VANAGON.COM
Subject: Re: Wipers - Go/No-Go

John,

I recently had an issue with my wipers not wanting to work all the time. The
spade connector where the wiper wiring connects to the back of the fuse box
was all cruddy and rusted. We replaced it and I haven't had a problem since.

I'm not saying that is the first thing you should check but that's what
happened in my case anyhow.

Good luck.

--
Thanks,

Jeff
'85 GL (Gertie)
'90 Carat (Grover - the noble parts donor)
'86 (We call this one Scrap)
'78 Bus (Melissa) Patty's Bus