Changing Daytime Running Light Bulbs

[Phantompooper]

Ever since I got my clear corners installed, I keep having the daytime running light bulbs burn out. You have bulbs that are nice and hot from having been on for several minutes at least and if you mix them with water or if they just can't take shining anymore, they burn right out. If it's because they mix with water, they usually explode, leaving little pieces of amber glass in my clear corner. The only way to remove the little pieces of glass is by actually removing the entire clear corner assembly. I'm not gonna show you how to do that today, but I am going to go through the process of replacing your clear corner bulbs step-by step since if I had a problem with this, I'm sure many of you out there have had it too.

Question = How do I know my bulb has burned out/exploded/committed suicide?

Answer = Simple, the daytime running light will not shine, and since we're hardly ever outside of our cars when they're running, there is another way to tell. Say you switch on your turn signal and the little green light on your dash turns on and says on, that means there is a good chance the bulb has burned out. What do you do?

Step one
You will need to purchase a replacement bulb from Autozone or another automotive parts store, since I have clear corners and CA state law says I need amber bulbs in my running lights, I purchased the amber equivalent to what you regualr guys need. They come in packs of two, but rarely will you ever have both go out at the same time, save the other one, because someday soon, you'll need it. This is what the bulbs look like.



Step two

Next you need to pop your hood and locate the 10mm bolt holding the headlight mount in, it's located behind a support bracket behind the headlight cluster. As seen here



Step three

Once you have located the bolt, go ahead and remove that bad boy. Try not to lose it in the vast space of your front bumper cover. If you have huge banana ( ) hands like me and have a hard time grasping things, don't worry if you do drop it. Once you remove the headlight mount you can see right straight down there and even my mitts fit to get it out. Set the bolt aside for later.



Step four

Now comes the tricky part, moving the headlight cluster. Describing this is going to be difficult, but once you've done it you'll understand and think I'm an idiot too. The first thing you do is look behind the headlight cluster and notice that near the bottom of the mount on the back there are two tabs that slide into the headlight bracket. You will firmly grasp the cluster and move the whole thing towards the center of the car. The cluster will move with a clicking noise. It looks like this.



You should be able to move it enough to pull the far side (away from the center of the car) towards you. Careful now, the bulbs in the headlight cluster are still in their harnesses. Once you pull it towards you, you should have enough slack in the harnesses to tilt the cluster up and out of the way.



Popped out



Tilted up and out of the way.

Step five

Sweet! The hard part is over. Go ahead and peer in there and you should see the top of the turn signal/daytime running light housing and a dark gray bulb housing right on top there.



Go ahead and unlock that housing by pushing in the plastic piece and rotating. It might be a little melted so you're gonna need to use some hand strength. Once it's turned and unlocked from the housing, pull the bulb housing out and take a look at the exploded/burnt-out bulb.



Use caution pulling the bulb out as it might be hot or broken. Nothing sucks more than glass cuts, so use a shop rag or towel to grab the bulb by the base and pull it out. Replace with a new one and you're all set to put everything back together! Replace the bulb housing making sure you get a good tight seal and position the headlight so that the inward side gets angled in first, then tuck in the outward side. Take care to make sure the rubber on the outward side of the headlight cluster gets tucked in there too. Position the tabs on the rear of the cluster to fit back into the bracket and push the whole housing outward (again, watch the rubber on the cluster). It should fit in there tight enough that you could get away with not putting in the bolt at all, but don't . Tighten the bolt back down and test your new working turn signal. Gung Ho! You're now an auto mechanic, intake manifold and cam swaps will be child's play in comparison to this!!

[HMFDZ28]

You might wanna add to pull the 5 top retainer clips and pull the front bumper cover back alittle. On my Z I couldnt get the headlights out with out doin this. Well I could but I would have scratched the hel outta the bumper and lights. Nice right up though

[squirrelishere]

Another thing when I changed my lights to my halo lights is that sometimes that screw just doesn't want to come out. I think mine was a bit rusted and it just kept on turning and turning, so some people might need a replacement screw there.