ughh, tail lamp water

92BlackGT

New member
i bought my SHO about 6 weeks ago and i thought i did a good job of finding the issues a used car has and getting the dealer to fix them. well, i missed one... and a big one at that. my driver side outer tail light has a crack and it let in a ton of water during the recent rain storms. my turn signal started flashing really fast indicating a blow bulb and then noticed the brake light isn't working. I found the crack in the lens (how i didn't see it at the dealer is beyond me) and found an ocean of water inside the lens :(

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unfortunately, a new tail lamp assembly from Ford (tasca) is $621, rockauto is $563 and LKQ is $400. i found one on ebay for $336 shipped so i bought that.
getting the lamp assembly out is simple.
disconnect the grey connector and remove the 3 nuts.

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then just pull on the black grommet and the wires will come loose.

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that brown goo by the trunk support strut was under the black plastic of the tail lamp assembly. it was a slimy, nasty film.
 
The outers are easy to find at junk yards too...it's the inners that are hard to get, usually sold with trunk lid.

Rich

 
got the new tail light in so i decided to take apart the old assembly to see what was inside.
here are some gee-whiz photo's

lense removed (shattered)
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innards removed
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some inner bezel removed
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electronics separated
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close up of electronics
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a look at the tiny LED's for the turn signal. crazy how bright they are
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i was bored and wanted to see what was up inside there, that's all.
 
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