Disintegrating wiring insulation in Litronics headlight assembly

Originally Posted by dghii

Weird thing is, my drivers side assembly was fine. I searched online and realized how common this issue seems to be with German cars of this era.

I think what accelerated mine was having the back cap of the assembly installed wrong and leaving a 3/8" gap at the bottom. It was no longer sealed at that point and allowed moisture/heat/etc. in.

I checked my other assembly (which was sealed) and there were one or two wires that had a crack - no insulation flaking off like the one above.