One Headlight

When we got my wife's car (Kutcher) most of the systems worked fine. The dome lights worked for a little, but then stopped working. I picked up some replacements from the junkyard, and one of these days I'll get around to putting them in... If I can locate them again!!! I went looking for them a while ago, and didn't find them.

Not long after we'd got it, one of the headlight bulbs burned out. I pulled it out, it was a Sylvania Silver Star, and replaced it with one that I had from my bag of light bulbs, quite possibly one that had been in 3. A little after, the other one burned out, as well. It was also a Sylvania Silver Star, and I've made a mental note to never buy that brand!!! Replaced it, and went on for a while with no issues.

After a while, the driver's side burned out again... or so I thought. I tried a different bulb, and it wasn't working either. I messed with the socket, and it would work in certain positions, but not when it was just at rest. OK, bad socket. Picked up a replacement from Auto Zone, and soldered it in place, with heat shrink over the junction. It had heavier wire than the original, and looked like a quality piece. It worked again... once again, for a while.

A few weeks later, it started flickering on and off at random. I checked the bulb again, and the socket still looked fine. Cleaned the socket and contacts, and gave the contacts a little tweak to make better contact, and it was... no worse. I messed with it a little, and it looked like it had a break farther back in the loom. I'd wiggle it, and it would come on. I gave up, and drove it for more than a year with one eye.

Around 6 months ago, I had the idea to get a relay, and make it switched from the passenger side light. I could do both wires, but it's probably just a break on one side, so before I start in, I get my meter out to check which side is flaky. When I check, though, both sides seem like they're good. Huh, was it just another bad socket all this time??? Had a spare Saturn socket, albeit with fairly light gauge wire, and put that in, and once again, it's working fine!!!

For a while, anyway...

A couple months ago, it went out again. When I got around to pulling the bulb out and checking for a burnt out bulb, I discovered the plug was as seen here, burnt and melted!!! I had seen Rock Auto had a high temperature bulb extension socket for not much, so I ordered one. It was shown as a male-female extension, but what arrived was a pair of the plug ends. Soldered one on, and it's working again. Hopefully, it really is high temperature and takes care of the issue for good!!!

Conversely, when I got the Sky, it needed some things done. As I mentioned when I got it, there were several questionable “upgrades” done to Zonker. It had a lot of the lights changed out to LED or xenon bulbs, and other than the low beams, I'd changed 'em all back to conventional lights and got the turn signals working right. Also, the turn signal lever wasn't canceling when I got it, and I replaced it, as well. Also adjusted the coil overs up near stock height, added a bluetooth adapter, and as previously chronicled, got the exhaust quieted down some. Not mentioned, shortly after I'd got it, the check engine light came on, and clearing the codes didn't last, and I've just been driving it as it was and knowing I'd have to do something before smog check time (which is coming up). A little after I'd had the exhaust done, the light turned off on it's own!!! I checked, and the old codes were still in there, so I cleared them, and they haven't come back, so hopefully all it was was the exhaust leak.

The radio antenna was broken off when I got it, and it didn't tune very well because of it. Because of where it's positioned on the rear flank, it is apparently an issue with the Skys, so I got one of the short rubber antennas that had been popular back in the 80's. Made a world of difference in the radio quality. The Monsoon subwoofer speaker cone was detached from the foam surround, and I glued it back into place with some RTV to fix the speaker rattle.

Back to the time when we were having constant red flag days, and the Sky had been moved to the bottom of the hill, as I was getting ready to move it back, I noticed that one of the projector driving lights was missing. Really??? Just missing??? Did someone seriously manage to steal one of my lights???

I opened the hood, and it turned out the light had only been rotated off to the side, but the light bulb itself was just gone, with the plug dangling.

When I finally got some free time, I took the light out to see what happened. Turns out, of the three mounting points, only one was remaining. I checked another mounting point, and the plastic tab was still there. I epoxied it back on, and while I had the light out, I discovered that the bulb and it's metal base were still inside the light!!! The first outside picture shows a big black scrape right below the light hole, I'm pretty sure I smacked a tire tread, and that's probably what broke everything!!!