81' Electrical problem--Anyone had this yet?

[JasonSquarePants]

I know a lot of people have similar electrical problems, but heres mine and im hoping someone has had something similar...

I have an 81 rabbit convert. (german) and the problem is this: my headlights and brake lights work fine, as well as the dome light, turn signals, and hazards. what is not working: tail lights, side markers, interior lights that are on the dimmer like the gauge lights and dash lights, and the trunk light doesnt work or the radio.

Now i initially figured it was a bad ground(duh) but what is strange is that the radio has an independant gound and isnt working. it does connect into the white/blue wire that ends up at the dimmer wheel on the headlight switch. some other strangeness is the light on the head light switch is sometimes always on instead of only on with the headlights. I know this has bad ground written all over it but you know how tight it is under the dash. I also read about someone having problems like this and it was with the power supply. im trying to get a voltmeter to check this. one last thing is that the cigarette lighter always blows fuse 7. it has always done this, but i know that fuse shares some things with these other affected areas. Im going to continue checking stuff out, and im also wondering if the headlight switch itself should be suspect. let me know.

[JasonSquarePants]

hey, figured it out before anyone responded, but ill go ahead and tell the cure just in case anyone else has the same problem...

it wasnt a bad ground at all. i got a volt meter and tracked the problem back to what everything had in common--the headlight switch. i bypassed some wires to power the interior lights and side markers from the already working headlights and found that everything was working just fine with adequite power...turns out the wires going to the head light switch carrying the power for the side markers, dimmers, etc...were only powering 7.2 volts. so i tracked the red power wire back to the fuse panel and pulled the colored harnesses to get to the blue one. surprise, there were two connections that had obviously been fried. i tested the wire for continuity and made sure that all the involved wires were not broken somewere down the line and they were all fine. i cleaned off the male connection posts with a nail file and put some dielectric grease on them and plugged it back in... it worked for a few seconds and quit again. so i cleaned it again and tried it again...nothing. i assumed (and hoped) that all the cleaning just wore the posts and female connectors down too much to make contact. it was pretty tight in the fuse area so i clipped a few strands from a piece of stranded electrical wire i had and stuck them into the affected plugs and hooked them back up. it worked like a champ. the strands made just the perfect fit again and now everything is running great.

still having the problem with the cigarette lighter blowing fuse 7. good thing im not a smoker. funny things these old little cars do...