John,

Don't sell the wiring harness.  I have an '84 with the problem.  I learned 
to live with it since before VW knew how to fix it, so I probably won't 
ever bother to fix the problem.

It is easy to blame lots of things on this infamous problem, but the 
symptoms are quite definitive.  The original problem described in this 
chain doesn't sound like it to me.

Mike