On a
recent fishing trip with our little JonBoat, Debbie spotted the rear
driver's side tail lamp module on our boat trailer had failed. These are
sealed incandescent units, without any possible access to replace the
lamp. They're not very expensive, but being the tightwad that I am, I
had to set about to attempt a repair.
These have a dual filament 1157 lamp inside, with the wiring soldered
to the bulb, the bulb mounted in a glob of silicon rubber adhesive, and
the red lens literally glued in place. Using my Dremel tool and a
carbide cutoff disc, I cut around the junction where the red lens was
attached to the white plastic housing.
With the red lens removed, I scraped off the melted plastic, pulled
the lamp out, and peeled the old silicone adhesive out. A new 1157 lamp
(costing about a buck!) was re-soldered to the wiring, a new glob of
silicone adhesive (bathtub caulking) was squirted into the middle of the
white plastic base, and the new lamp was nestled down into the
adhesive. Once that cured, I applied a thick bead of silicone caulking
around the perimeter of the lens, and the lens was pressed back into
place onto the base. The excess caulking was wiped off, and the assembly
was allowed to cure.
