rear fog light activation

toolboy62 · 01-16-2005, 07:06 PM

OK, so the past week or two has been exceptionally foggy around here... thought about activating the rear fog light. Did a little research and discovered that as usual the Krauts rearranged the taillight pattern for the US cars. (reference discussion on rec.autos.driving for an EXCELLENT explanation by Daniel Stern of why they do this.) Anyway I can handle the rearranging but I need an extra socket to make this work. Anyone have a busted up, crappy taillight assembly they'll sell me so I can pirate the sockets out of it? One good one is all I need, anything else is a bonus.

Also, there apparently is no wiring installed from the factory for the rear fog. @#$%^#%^&. So I guess it will be custom once I can get my hands on the factory switch and see what little connectors I need. Grr.

nate

SoCal Driver · SoCal Driver's Garage

The early 944's have the extra wire. At least my 83 does. IceShark would buy extra sockets at the VW dealers. Try a junk yard and look for VW Rabits and Golfs.

pokey · 01-17-2005, 12:30 AM

Sounds like a cool conversion. How about a diagram of the light layout with thae fog tail light?

toolboy62 · 01-17-2005, 05:57 AM

SoCal - what year Jetta or Golf? I know an A2 Golf is completely different. I may still have some A2 Jetta taillights laying around in my junk box.

Pokey - the lenses are the same, but the bulb arrangement is different. The lower, outside right segment is the brake light and the middle lower (retroreflector) segment is the parking light. The big inner segment is then the rear fog, presumably on the driver's side only.

nate

SoCal Driver · SoCal Driver's Garage

85 as far as I can recall. Think that IceShark posted the part numbers either here or on Rennlist for others to buy. Do a search on "IceShark" in this forum.

IceShark · 01-17-2005, 01:07 PM

Yeah, that was the "Dead Tail Light and Exterior Light Bulb Upgrade" project back in April 2003. Within a month I cleaned out all of North America and was told the rest of the world on those OEM sockets. The sockets were discontinued and out of production and I hit what was left of the inventory channel for around 200 sockets.

The part number is 111.945.265 . The type 1 VDub Beetles also used it as well as some Audies. Try the used parts places.

The sockets and bulb packages went all over the world to 924/944 owners. What a pain filling out customs papers by hand on those.

toolboy62 · 01-17-2005, 01:29 PM

am I to infer from your reply that you don't have any more of them then...?

nate

IceShark · 01-17-2005, 01:58 PM

Nate, Oh no, they were all subscribed to back in April/May '03. That was an "IceShark Classic" that sold out faster than I could get the parts and people sent in money before they even knew if they could actually get in on the deal.

There is someone on FleaBay that sells a "kit" where he solders wires to a bulb and makes some sort of socket to jam in there. I don't know if he has gotten more sophisticated over the years but it was a great joke when a guy showed them to me.

See if you can get a tail light backing plate off a parted 944. Then you have 4 sockets. Try and avoid sockets that had the "fish bowl" leak problem in the lenses as they will be corroded pretty bad. For price reference I was selling the new OEM sockets for $3USD each.

toolboy62 · 01-17-2005, 02:53 PM

yeah that was my original plan, and why I posted here. I am in junkyard hell, if anyone has one here it will be expen$ive... I'm kind of at the mercy of my fellow gearheads on this one.

thanks

nate

bluebullet · 06:49 PM

Quote:

Originally posted by toolboy62
SoCal - what year Jetta or Golf? I know an A2 Golf is completely different. I may still have some A2 Jetta taillights laying around in my junk box.

Pokey - the lenses are the same, but the bulb arrangement is different. The lower, outside right segment is the brake light and the middle lower (retroreflector) segment is the parking light. The big inner segment is then the rear fog, presumably on the driver's side only.

nate

yup thats how its done. Mine is the same way (go euro

). I got a pic of it on my comp (it came out kinda weird but i'll try to post it)

mine gets water in there from time to time and keeps blowing the bulb. I suspect the seal around the tailight is bad....or the tailight itself is known to have this problem?

toolboy62 · 01-18-2005, 02:30 AM

I would suspect you need a new lens/reflector assembly. The tailight seal just keeps water from running inside the body and collecting in the side wells, if water is getting into the lens then pieces that are supposed to be permanently molded together apparently no longer are.

nate

IceShark · 01-18-2005, 06:26 AM

Quote:

Originally posted by toolboy62
I would suspect you need a new lens/reflector assembly. The tailight seal just keeps water from running inside the body and collecting in the side wells, if water is getting into the lens then pieces that are supposed to be permanently molded together apparently no longer are.

nate

Actually, the rear lights can get water in them in a variety of fashions. Besides leaking in from the exterior face, they can catch water from the *inside*. The hatch latching pin receiver "wells" are the place to start looking for that. The rubber block that seals, the little catch pan and the drain hoses. If water leaks it just so happens that it drips on the plastic lens housing, runs down between the housing and its end cap that is held on by one screw and into the cell openings. Sounds unlikely, but that is what happens.

Makes quite the fish bowl pretty quick as a lot of water can go through the receiver wells if the car is at the right angle and it rains hard.

I can also see this happening if the seal between lens and body was messed up.