jk_sea

Hi All,

Today, I got a set of Trucklite LED headlamps so I had the lamps on the front end apart. The install of the Trucklites went fine, but I discovered a completely separate/unrelated issue while I was working.

The housings for the orange turn signals in the front grille have deformed and melted such that I can't get the bulb socket out of them anymore. I removed the harness connector, and removed the lamp housings from the grille and took a look at them. There's deformation where the bulb is closest to the housing, and the opening for the bulb has elongated and stretched out.

The lamps are stock, the housings are stock. The ONLY thing I can think of as to why this happened.... I have an AEV programmer and I have the DRL's set to run the parking lamps. They run on the bright (turn signal) setting. I've seen lots of people do this, it's one of the standard options on the programmer, and it appears the long runtime on "bright" with the stock bulbs has completely destroyed the turn signal housings from heat.

Has anyone else experienced this? I did a search but couldn't find anything, so I'm not totally convinced what happened is a result of the AEV DRL function.

Needless to say, I'm in the market for a second-hand set of parking lamp lenses, and if I continue to run the parking lamps as DRL's, I'm definitely going to look into what an aftermarket LED lamp can do, and if they would run any cooler than the stock incandescent lamps that are in there.

Mountain Man Tim

LED's run much cooler than incandescent, the stock lights produce light by burning their metal filaments, this produces mainly heat, and some light, just light burning a wood fire or candle does. LED's produce mainly light and only some heat. this is why they dont just burn out like incandescents do. just make sure when getting led's that they are close enough to the same size as the stock bulbs to fit. my new reverse light led bulbs are nearly 4"s and touch the back of the case space, which worked out great, but any longer and they wouldnt have fit.

jk_sea

Well, I definitely need to replace the housings (and deactivate the turn signals as DRLs).

I just would have thought that DaimlerChrysler would have designed a turn signal housing that could withstand the temperature of the bright filament running on the stock bulb. Apparently I expected too much out of what appears to be a housing that probably cost about $0.17 to make.

Mountain Man Tim

+ the houseing is mounted in black fenders unless you have color matched, the sun beating on them in hotter climates cant easily get to 175-200+, before the light is even on, then you turn that light on and it only adds to the heat, and cheap chrysler plastic can only get so hot before it starts to melt. I can completely see this happening with the light set to bright all the time on a hot sunny day while parked and on.

jk_sea

Just FYI - the ones that melted were the ones in the grille (just below the headlight), not the fender flares. Those are fine.

Mountain Man Tim

ooo, ok, still makes sense, they are near enough to the radiator, and if you have a black grill, black is black. even white grills get hot when the sun is beating them up

search for "burned my hands taking my hard top off", both black and color matched guys have taken to haveing insulated gloves handy for freedom panels/rear top removal on sunny days, and i do not blame them in the least.

jk_sea

BUMP -- seeing if anyone else has encountered this issue, with the front park/turn signals used as DRL's.

I've seen a lot of people running around with the amber lamps on, surely someone else has encountered the melting issue? I'm kind of surprised AEV isn't aware of it and doesn't discourage or make that programming option unavailable??

Vladimer

I've melted the housing a bit in my grill. But I attribute it to the black paint on the outside and inside of the housing. I couldn't find any light delete things so I painted it black so no light will shine through. I have DRL and turn signals on the flares and arb bumper so no sense in having a 3rd light on the grill that is mostly hidden from view anyway.

edit: spelling

jk_sea

Yeah, specifically I'm looking for people with issues where the back of the signal housing has actually deformed because of heat from the bulb. This is in conjunction with the AEV Procal where you can set the front park/turn signal lamps to be DRL's (bright orange). I need to post a pic, but the back of the housing and the bottom where the bulb is closest, is completely deformed. The light socket is jammed in the hole because the housing melted and deformed around it, and there are now gaps where water can enter the lens.

I've got a new set of park/turn lamps coming from Quadratec. Except that they sent me an email saying they were on back order G'D Quadratec, I should have known better. My order is probably as good as lost. But two new ones for <$50 shipped didn't seem like a bad deal.

Vladimer

Yep, that is EXACTLY how mine are melted. I do have the procal and those lights are on all the time when I drive as well (just painted black so you can't see it). I always just assumed it was the painting of the lights that I did, possibly not!