04 June 2013

Look For The Union Label

So you'll know who to blame when you walk out into the garage and find this:


That is condensation on the inside of my headlight capsule from someone of UAW Local 2164 who forgot to press the rubber lid on the high beam bulb all the way forward.

It has to have been like this since October 2007 when the car ran off the line, but this is the first time there's been this kind of condensation.

My car is a strike car, and this is the second little thing like this I've found that could be attributed to an interrupted assembly process.  The headliner being improperly adhered to the roof panel being the first.

Update: It's fixed.  Cost to McThag $0.00 and a few hours.  To access the lights on a 6th Gen Vette you remove the wheel on the side you want to work on.  Pop off the access cover.  Pull off the rubber covers, then you can get at the lights.  To dry things out I put a 40w clip-on desk lamp in the capsule and let it sit for ten hours with the bulbs removed.  There's a little 1/4" vent that would have eventually allowed the humidity to equalize, but a bigger hole from the bulb and some heat from the light cleared it up much quicker.  In theory, with the cover properly in place, this will not reoccur.

4 comments:

  1. " To access the lights on a 6th Gen Vette you remove the wheel on the side you want to work on."

    You have got to be shitting me. Remove a wheel to change a headlight bulb?

    C'mon, Chevy! Part of the attraction of the 'Vette is that you don't have to do the weird maintenance hokey-pokey like you do on furrin' sports cars...

    ReplyDelete
  2. Raise and support the front of the vehicle.
    Remove front wheel.
    Remove the six push-pin fasteners holding the headlight access cover.
    Remove headlight access cover.
    Remove rubber cover over headlight.
    Unplug headlight.
    Remove bulb.

    Installation is the reverse of removal.

    I'm terrified of spark plugs in about 10k miles.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. I guess the good news is the HID's are low-failure rate items so you don't need to be up in the wheel well all that often.

      And this is actually far easier than replacing the passenger side bulb on a 91-96 B-Body. Double jointedness is mandatory if you don't want to pull the battery.

      Delete
    2. I had a Fiero 2M6 where you had to jack up the motor in its mounts and/or use a very dextrous spider monkey to get the plugs out of the forward bank of cylinders, but people buy mid-engine cars specifically for that sort of masochism anyway. ;)

      Delete

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