Smoky headlight switch

[T3TRIS]

Hello,

I was browsing TheSamba forums to try to fix the high beams on our van. We bought the van recently and it has gone through a few mods with previous owners.

When fixing the fuel gauge, I decided to replace the blue foil in the back of the cluster with GoWesty's electronic kit. Everything was peachy so far. The previous owner had installed 3 additional gauges to monitor battery load, coolant temp and oil pressure. Only one of these had a working instrument light. I replaced all 3 incandescent bulbs with little LED versions. Same with the interior dome lights and the main instrument cluster.

Shortly after, I noticed the high beams not working anymore. After researching the issue on TheSamba, I was going to start looking for possible culprits (bad grounds, loose switch, fuses, etc). I pulled the instrument cluster off and was just getting started with the turn signal switch when the headlight switch started smoking heavily for a few seconds. I had the ignition on as I was trying different scenarios to see if the lights would work. Shut the ignition off and ran to disconnect the battery, but the damage was done of course...

Any idea what might have happened or where I should start looking? I have some obvious damage I need to fix (wires and switch) but I also want to make sure this doesn't happen again.

Thanks!

[T3TRIS]

Well, this didn't get any traction! The irony for a Syncro owner... Muahaha

Bad jokes aside, here was my solution: GoWesty High Power Headlight Kit.

I had already purchased the kit from GoWesty a few days after this whole debacle. I don't remember if I always wanted to buy it or if I thought that it might fix the issue.

As a reminder, my issue was that after installing the GoWesty Printed Circuit Board Replacement Kit and quickly after firing it up, my headlight switch smoked up. I replaced it, replaced some wires but it didn't fix it. I would have working low beams but non-working high beams (when activated, my low beams would turn off, high beams wouldn't turn on and the blue light didn't turn on either)

Yesterday I finally got around to installing the kit. I removed the existing bulbs (all looked good, one high beam looked like it got a little warm but the element looked fine inside) and replaced them with the beefier ones. I spliced in the high power relays behind the fuse/relay box and put it all back together. I hit the light switch low mean worked, then hit the high beams and blasted our neighbor's house with glorious light! Tadaaaaaa

Somehow installing this kit made it all ok again.

Moral of the story: I know enough about electrical to screw things up, but not enough to understand exactly how I fix things.

I hope this helps someone!