BIZARRE electrical issues after LED bulb install?
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1st Gear
Joined: Aug 2012
Posts: 1
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From: SF Bay Area CA
BIZARRE electrical issues after LED bulb install?
Hi guys,
I just put a set of Depo clear corners and LED bulbs (white/amber switchbacks for the drl+signal and amber for the side markers) in my '03 Z06 last night, along with PIAA headlight bulbs. I did not install load resistors-I don't like them, and I intend to install a hyperflash harness when I can get one.
Until then, I was just going to live with the rapid flashing. The car has 40k on it and the passenger side DRL housing has melted through. The DRL sockets are scorched, but the contacts all look good. The switchback bulbs were very difficult to get in, though; the sockets were very tight.
Everything went fine, but this morning I had a really odd electrical issue on the way to work: all of the backlit stuff in the cockpit-the gauge backlighting, the DIC, the LCDs on the radio and the climate control and the climate control button backlighting all started blinking on and off very rapidly. It started randomly and stopped just as randomly a few seconds later.
It did the same thing to me on the way home, except it started shortly after leaving the office and it did it all the way home. I managed to get a video of what it's doing that I've put on youtube here:
http://youtu.be/M9CQpigZgb0
(apologies for the crappy quality, I was kind of in a hurry to get this as quickly as possible lest something expensive get damaged)
The flashing is accompanied by the sound of a relay clicking on and off in time with the flashing, but it's NOT the turn signal flasher in the hazard switch. It's coming from somewhere in the passenger footwell.
I think one of the LED bulbs must be defective. Probably one of the switchback bulbs, but I can't figure out how it would fail that would cause it to do this.
Does anyone have any idea what's going on? I think there must have been some kind of internal failure in one of the switchback bulbs. The obvious solution is to swap incandescent bulbs back in-which is what I'm about to go do as a diagnostic measure-but we all know what incandescents do to the housings and the sockets and that's not a good long-term solution. I need to figure out why the heck it's doing this.
Also, I somehow managed to knock both headlight doors slightly out of alignment while installing bulbs and polishing the lenses (I'll be damned if I know how, but the passenger side one now closes too high and the driver's side too low). I searched for how to adjust them, and I found this post:
http://forums.corvetteforum.com/1562800113-post4.html
But with the "to fix this..." pictures missing, it's not of much help. What screw do I turn to adjust the angle of the headlight doors so they're flush with the hood and fenders when the lights are off?
Thanks!
I just put a set of Depo clear corners and LED bulbs (white/amber switchbacks for the drl+signal and amber for the side markers) in my '03 Z06 last night, along with PIAA headlight bulbs. I did not install load resistors-I don't like them, and I intend to install a hyperflash harness when I can get one.
Until then, I was just going to live with the rapid flashing. The car has 40k on it and the passenger side DRL housing has melted through. The DRL sockets are scorched, but the contacts all look good. The switchback bulbs were very difficult to get in, though; the sockets were very tight.
Everything went fine, but this morning I had a really odd electrical issue on the way to work: all of the backlit stuff in the cockpit-the gauge backlighting, the DIC, the LCDs on the radio and the climate control and the climate control button backlighting all started blinking on and off very rapidly. It started randomly and stopped just as randomly a few seconds later.
It did the same thing to me on the way home, except it started shortly after leaving the office and it did it all the way home. I managed to get a video of what it's doing that I've put on youtube here:
http://youtu.be/M9CQpigZgb0
(apologies for the crappy quality, I was kind of in a hurry to get this as quickly as possible lest something expensive get damaged)
The flashing is accompanied by the sound of a relay clicking on and off in time with the flashing, but it's NOT the turn signal flasher in the hazard switch. It's coming from somewhere in the passenger footwell.
I think one of the LED bulbs must be defective. Probably one of the switchback bulbs, but I can't figure out how it would fail that would cause it to do this.
Does anyone have any idea what's going on? I think there must have been some kind of internal failure in one of the switchback bulbs. The obvious solution is to swap incandescent bulbs back in-which is what I'm about to go do as a diagnostic measure-but we all know what incandescents do to the housings and the sockets and that's not a good long-term solution. I need to figure out why the heck it's doing this.
Also, I somehow managed to knock both headlight doors slightly out of alignment while installing bulbs and polishing the lenses (I'll be damned if I know how, but the passenger side one now closes too high and the driver's side too low). I searched for how to adjust them, and I found this post:
http://forums.corvetteforum.com/1562800113-post4.html
But with the "to fix this..." pictures missing, it's not of much help. What screw do I turn to adjust the angle of the headlight doors so they're flush with the hood and fenders when the lights are off?
Thanks!
