The Mrs. likes the side glass up when we ride with our top down, and I acquiesce to her wishes and gently slide my "man card" into the glove box area for retrieval post-ride. It's a small price to pay for her keeping the long blonde hair that I adore vs. chopping it off for the "I want to speak to your Manager" hairdo that seemingly defines femininity today. Also, no need for a cardigan in the Midwestern United States right now. For those who haven't been here in the summer, it's appallingly hot & humid.

 

So, back to actually working on the car a bit. Been driving it in the rain a good bit lately and noticed that the drivers side fog light keeps filling with water so...

Let's take it apart. Three 10mm plastic nuts hold each hatch / trunk housing in place. Then unplug the wire and it's free. In my case, the housings say RH REV and LH FOG.



The back with it's child proof assembly technique... Trim the melted tan caps off and the lamp circuit card comes free from the housing.



Like so...



Plugged it in and verified it's the red side...



And the red side looks surprisingly like the white side... Even plugs in its place...



To remove the reflector, just pick away the black melted bits' I'll need to silicone them back together but it's a painless process so no drama. Notice how the lamp is formed as a reverse pyramid? That's what projects the light onto the chrome reflector so it gets projected behind the car. Clever.



The lamp housing says 12v 4.2 w... I wonder if I can find the same style 1.4 watt surface mount LEDs in white and solder them in place? Would be a simple 'fix' once the power wire was jumpered to the reverse lamp power to have two working reverse lamps.



Sadly I couldn't just blow air into the housing and have the moisture dissipate so I drilled a .050" hole in the bottom corner and placed it out in the sun. The housing is thermally welded together and mine has cracked at the seam. Once the moisture is gone I'll crazy glue the seam and hopefully be done with this project.

Now, off to find some LED's...

 

FYI a natural remedy ..........a 1/1 ratio of EVOO and lemon juice per diem, or, ever so often will help mitigate those stones. In some cases, if not too large, will cause them to pass without the "ouch", again "if" not too big. My wife has the tendencies and seems to work for her.

 

Thanks for the tip, I'll have to try it but what volume are you suggesting? I've tried about everything else but currently settled on lots of highly filtered water as best. At least it is usually just gravel lately and not the roll around the room rocks. lol

 

It's 1/1, as in "1" TBL lemon juice to "1"TBL EVOO. Not too bad if you use olive oil in cooking, salad dressing recipes etc. I'm the cook in the house, so, olive oil is widely used in many ways. Good luck!

 

 

The reverse and fog lights on the pre 2010 cars are LED, he's only going to change the red LEDs on the foglight to white LEDs.

 

Yep, ordered ten 3 watt and ten 5 watt warm white SMD's for $13 off Aliexpress with a US shipper so we'll see what happens. I need to figure the DC amp load of the housing with OEM LED's and them see what it is with the replacements. 1, 3, and 5 watt SMDs use the same form factor so hoping I can get more light projection from the 5's without nuking the drivers. Meanwhile the lamp is hanging out in the sun.

In other news I finished rebuilding the turbo for my dad's boat last night. Just need to Tig weld up a new exhaust elbow and fit the insulation on it. Then back to my '58 MF50 which is apart because the steering shaft bushing seized and spun. Blew a hose while troubleshooting it so $60 for a bushing and $75 for a hose and I hope it's mobile again. There's an old RV gas Onan generator on the back of it that needs separated and mated to the diesel Onan that's been taking up room in the shop since last Summer. I need to hide the blown 4.2 //r motor or I'll have it strung all over the shop too... I think I'm making progress but I might need an intervention...

 

 

Not to diminish Ranchos ingenuity, but I think this has been discussed before. On '07s the rear fog light is the light directly behind the driver. It is on the left on US Jaguars and on the right on U.K. Jaguars. It is a very simple matter to change to the rear back-up from the other jurisdiction (passenger side). I found a right (back up) light on U.K. eBay for about $50.

 

If he's anything like me, it's probably more the attempt and challenge of doing it himself.... even if it ends up costing a few more dollars.

"HE has more fun than YOU do "

 

Once this fleshes out I hope to do a tutorial where it costs less than $10 to retrofit... UK sourced lamp was $60 plus $ 30 to ship off eBay turned me away. I want to fix the condensation on this housing so getting a white light out of it is just a perk I didn't plan on.

 

Yep, sort of the benefit of this entire thread is alternate solutions to common problems and general DIY. Why buy when you can DIY?

 

Welp, round one of the LED swap has been a failure. Little package of happyness was stuck in the bottom of the mailbox. That should have been a sign. Then pulled the car around back and picked up 10,000 little flying gnat looking things. Soldered in a 3 watt LED, nothing worked... Looked at the print again and soldered it with the correct polarity and they all lit up, dimly. Uh oh... Soldered in the 5 watt version and they were even darker. So I'm going to try the 1 watt ones and see if I can get them working. Looking at the load rating on them each 1 watt takes 3.4 volts of drive and all of the ones in this lamp housing are in series so if I had four I wouldn't need to worry too much. However..

 

A year later and I can say my mind was blown reading this. Great thread! Only on page 21 and kinda binge reading this over the course of the week, but still very impressed. Can't wait to 'catch up'.

 

Ya'll need to come on out to San Diego and Interstate 15. I received a warning from a CHP Officer one time for not driving with the flow of traffic going 75mph in a 65mph zone.

Anyways, Ranchero I've caught up and have to emphasize how enjoyable it was reading your posts and following the community follow your forlorn jag. Not so forlorn anymore!

 

How did the 1 watt work out?

 

Still waiting on China post...

134k on the clock today.

 

Took a weeks vacation and it rained all day so I dug this project out and soldered it together. Currently stress testing the circuit to make sure it doesn't burst into flame and so far it's been promising. The LED's do get a little warm but nothing outrageous.

Control board to run 3x3w LED's in series.
https://www.aliexpress.com/item/5pcs...2d404c4dYDHyKI



Circuit is pretty simple. Just desolder all the factory bits and solder the new LED's and control circuit in the correct sequence. Note in the image I soldered my LED's in backwards (because I'm an idiot) so the polarity of the control circuit looks wrong compared to the PCB board label. Still need to silicone the control board to the back and solder the power wires to the connection.


It's pretty bright on the floor but of course I have no idea if it'll focus and throw some light out until I get it mounted in the car.

 

cool. I miss this thread.