John: Glad it worked out, and though not smoothly, less drawn out and
expensive than my experience.

Alan

At 04:29 PM 17/12/99 -0800, John McLean wrote:
>I wanted to thank all who were so kind to offer helpfull advice and
>potential solutions regarding my recent problem with intermittent
>headlights.     As it turned out it was the ignition switch that was
>bad.    My mechanic had to put three of them in before the problem was
>totally resolved , however.     The first two had bizarre electrical
>malfunctions built right in!    The first switch allowed the heater fans
>(front and back) to to remain running even with the ignition off.    It
>also would allow intermittent function of the windshield wipers with the
>ignition off.    He told me later that the second switch would allow all
>functions correctly except that it would not allow the engine to
>start.    Interesting quality issues here!      He assured me that the
>parts were new and not remanufactured.   They came from a parts
>distributer and not the dealer.
>
>Before I found the switch to be the problem I did go under the dash and
>clean up the connections on the two star (?) grounds.
>As my second windshield had leaked for some time I expected the
>worst.    Turns out there was some minimal corrosion on the bottom of
>the forward star but none on the rearward one.   I believe some one said
>the rear one had the grounds for the headlights.     Just for good
>measure,because I was there anyway, I went ahead and pulled all the
>grounds off (carefully) and cleaned up all surfaces I could reach with
>some mediym grit emery paper.     I may thank myself later!
>
>Merry Christmas to all,
>Jaymac,  87 Vanagon GL  195,000 miles  (still --  my speedometer was
>broke for a while)
>
Alan Pickersgill
Ottawa, ON
Canada