It happened to me. I was washing the car and letting the motor run for a few minutes so not to shut off a cold engine. The auto lights were on. I left them on because I like to check the lighting periodically. All looked good and I started washing the car. As I was washing the right side of the car I noticed the front bumper marker was out. I had just checked them all and it was working before I began to wash the car. I put that info in my memory and completed washing the car. I put all the washing supplies away and went to check the marker light.

I removed the marker light housing and noticed that it was melted on the inside. Apparently at sometime in its life it had been replaced with the wrong lamp that was too hot. I removed the lamp socket and noticed that the lamp was cloudy looking so I assumed the filament blew. I started to pull the W5W lamp out and it shattered between my thumb and finger! OUCH! Chards of glass were penetrating my finger tips. After some needed medical attention I used some needle nose pliers to grasp the filament mount in the bulb to remove it. At this point I surmised that the lights had been on for a while and I squirted cold water that got behind the marker light housing and hit the hot lamp and caused it to shatter.

No need to put a new lamp in the compromised marker light housing as it would just do it again sometime. So I thought I would just get a new one. Boy was I surprised at the cost of a new one and even used ones on eBay. I am cheap so I started to see what I could do the repair it………………..

First I noticed that the plastic had melted inward toward the lamp and left a large glob of plastic inside of the housing. Got out my trusty Dremmel tool and ground away the inward protruding melted plastic so the new lamp would not be touching any plastic. I next smoothed out the hole that was left by the melting plastic. I had a roll of aluminum duct tape and cut out a piece that would cover the hole. Because I am **** retentive, I also spread a film of clear silicone sealer around the edges of the aluminum tape. That’s my repair and I hope it holds up! BTW, I used the correct W5W lamp as a replacement.

Melted marker lamp holder.



After grinding and smoothing.



Tape applied.



Silicone sealer applied.

 

Good write up. Well done.

Roger