Just a good old friendly PSA to stop and take 60 seconds to think about what you're doing when you come across a hurdle that's stumped you, mid-way through any project you may be working on.
I just spent the better part of an hour replacing passenger rear tail light bulb on my 98 LX. Should have been a 10 minute job tops.
Removed old, visibly burnt out bulb in about 5 minutes. The problem hurdle I encountered was that after replacing the old burnt out bulb with a brand new bulb, I still had no light.
The rest of the 55 minutes was spent on digging out the multimeter, finding my Electrical Wiring Diagram, and attempting to remember what I'd been taught in Physics. Tested voltage at the harness, voltage present. Removed driver's scuff plate and kick panel to check the fuse, fuse was good. More wasted time was spent on the fact that neither the scuff plate or kick panel required removal to access the fuse box.
Stumped, I smoked a cig and pondered my next move.
It wasn't until I decided to try the working driver's tail light bulb on the passenger side and seeing it light up did I realize I may have the wrong bulbs.
Yep. I had been trying to replace 7440's instead of the correct 7443's. Luckily I had a spare set of 7443's lying around that quickly solved my issue.
Moral of the Story: don't always trust what you think you're convinced of. Had I verified the burnt bulb said 7443 instead of not giving two s***s and winging it, I wouldn't have wasted a beautiful hour of sunlight on my day off to bask and drink Heineken in.
I just spent the better part of an hour replacing passenger rear tail light bulb on my 98 LX. Should have been a 10 minute job tops.
Removed old, visibly burnt out bulb in about 5 minutes. The problem hurdle I encountered was that after replacing the old burnt out bulb with a brand new bulb, I still had no light.
The rest of the 55 minutes was spent on digging out the multimeter, finding my Electrical Wiring Diagram, and attempting to remember what I'd been taught in Physics. Tested voltage at the harness, voltage present. Removed driver's scuff plate and kick panel to check the fuse, fuse was good. More wasted time was spent on the fact that neither the scuff plate or kick panel required removal to access the fuse box.
Stumped, I smoked a cig and pondered my next move.
It wasn't until I decided to try the working driver's tail light bulb on the passenger side and seeing it light up did I realize I may have the wrong bulbs.
Yep. I had been trying to replace 7440's instead of the correct 7443's. Luckily I had a spare set of 7443's lying around that quickly solved my issue.
Moral of the Story: don't always trust what you think you're convinced of. Had I verified the burnt bulb said 7443 instead of not giving two s***s and winging it, I wouldn't have wasted a beautiful hour of sunlight on my day off to bask and drink Heineken in.
