Side Light Bulb

[maxcaddy]

On getting the old girl ready for its MoT I spotted one of the side lights not working. An easy job thought I, headlight out, bulb changed, job done, but how the hell does the bulb come out ?.

 

From the back of the light its easy enough to get to the main beam bulb, but the side light bulb is difficult to get to, and I'm not certain it comes out of the back anyway. The alternative is to take the bulb out of the front, but that means taking the glass off, and to do that it seems to be held on by plastic clips all around the body itself which I suspect will snap off as soon as I try.

 

So, anyone else changed a sidelight bulb ?

[gordy]

Are you taking out the whole light unit from front end after removing the 2 or 3 machine screws that secures it to cross member. You  are Voyager I take it. 

[maxcaddy]

Yep, I've got the whole light unit out, the cover plate off the back of it, and it's how that side light bulb comes out which is the question 

[bignev]

I've done mine a couple of times, replaced with LED's now, and if I remember correctly it's a small twist then pull, the W5W type.

[maxcaddy]

Many thanks for that Nev, yep it came out of the back with a twist and pull. Now ordered LED W5W's simply because I didn't have any filament types to hand. If that's all it needs for another year I'll be amazed  .

[RichardM]

Some vehicles with {sophisticated / over engineered} computer systems complain when you change a lump of hot wire for an LED, interested to know if you get any faults generated. 

Also, on the topic of lights, should the light switches on the right of the dash be illuminated - mine aren't. If there is a bulb behind the housing any idea how to change it ?

[bignev]

Hi Richard!

No, there's never been any problems with the LED's for side lights, or the cheap aftermarket HID Xenons I swapped in for the headlight low beams.

 

The light switch on the earlier models 2001 up to 2005 were indeed backlit illuminated, I had 2 of them, but not our later ones. It annoyed me enough in the early months of ownership of this one that I sourced the older version with the fittings and bulbs and figured out which wire it needed to link across to light it up.

The previous model also had 2 lights on each of the vanity mirrors in the sun visor, that were dimmable. I changed them too.

[maxcaddy]

So here we go, LED's ordered and delivered. The first issue is that the head of the bulb was big, so much so it was a bit of a fight to get it in, and because I've had issues in the past where if one light was brighter than the other it failed, I decided to change both of them. 

 

With both bulbs in I rested the lights on the front grill and turned the switch. Nothing at all .

 

Took one bulb out, well took it out after the connector pulled off the back and I had to fish it out via the Headlight bulb hole . Tried it both ways in the connector, nothing. Was going to sent them back but thought I'd try it across a 12V battery. I did that and wow it lit up. Checked the connectors power and yes 12V was there, so put the bulb into the connector and put it back in the light and yes it worked  . Had to do exactly the same with the other side  . 

 

Okay, whether it was me or whether there's some bizarre issue going on whereby it seems that the bulbs need initialising before they'll work is unknown, but after all that faffing about I now have 2 working sidelights, which is all I wanted in the first place.

[bignev]

Cracking job! The ones I got ( and several others for various other cars) came with the info that if they didn't work, turn them round in the holder. They are polarity sensitive!

It's 50 50 if they work first time. But you tried that and it didn't work until you connected it directly. Very wierd!! 

Bet they're nice and bright hey!