Michael,
 
I live in snowy/soggy/salty western PA and the PO had done the relay upgrade apparently.  I never had a complaint with my headlights but one spring prior to the annual nail-biter inspection a cop pulled alongside me at a gas station and told me to turn my headlights on, but they were "on" just not "on".  Much archive searching and the culprit appeared to be bad ground.  I did not clean the crown of grounds under the fuse box as I didn't want to stir up more gremlins right before inspection.  I added a pigtail to the ground wire at the buckets terminated in a ring connector, attached to one of the mounting screws along with a glob of dielectric, no issues since (about 3 years).  
 
You know I never did clean the mega-ground in the cab yet, I'll add that to my spring to do list.  
 
Oh yeah things looked pretty good behind the grill, a lot better than my seams :)
 
Ryan
 
> Date: Mon, 15 Nov 2010 05:06:21 -0800
> From: michael@JAMHOME.US
> Subject: Re: Bad ground. WAS; Hmm. Headlights don't ...
> To: vanagon@GERRY.VANAGON.COM
> 
> On Sun, Nov 14, 2010 at 11:03:37PM -0800, Jake de Villiers wrote:
> > That's a good suggestion.
> >
> > My headlights got noticeably brighter when I grounded them to the chassis
> > close to the lamps, especially the passenger side which has a longer path to
> > travel back to the silly grounding point.
> 
> I considered this when doing my conversion to a SA grill and light set.
> 
> For Jake and others who have done a near the light grounding:
> 
> How long ago did you do it?
> What is the climate in your area like?
> What did you do for corrosion and rust protection?
> What rust or other corrosion exists at the in grill ground?
> 
> --
> Michael Rasmussen, Portland Oregon
> Trading kilograms for kilometers since 2003
> Be appropriate && Follow your curiosity
> http://www.jamhome.us/
> The Fortune Cookie Fortune today is:
> BEWARE! People acting under the influence of human nature.