Older car re-bulbing (auto, trucks, buy, engine)

[Worren]

When cars get older and they are worth keeping it can be good to check the brightness of the light bulbs. Recently I noticed the backup lights on my ten year old pickup were real dim. The bulbs looked whitish so I headed down to the auto parts store. Since there were three bulbs I each tail light I bought a two pack of each. Changing them after cleaning the plastic housing with dish washing soap made a huge difference. Doing my Google research I learned that most car bulbs come in two packs because it's recommended to change them in pairs.
You can tell when a turn signal bulb is out because the other bulbs will flash at a faster rate until new bulbs are installed.
Also, if you upgrade to new led bulbs you must also install resistors so they will flash normally.

[engineman]

A brush made for cleaning a gun will do a nice job on light sockets.

Make sure that the light has a good ground with no rust between light and the car body.

[Worren]

Originally Posted by engineman

A brush made for cleaning a gun will do a nice job on light sockets.

Make sure that the light has a good ground with no rust between light and the car body.

True but many cars and trucks have flat sockets with wire connectors that can't be easily cleaned. Such as the 3357 stop light and 3356 turn signal bulbs. My advice is to buy a can of MAF (Mass Airflow Sensor) cleaner and spray it into the socket to safely clean it. That cleaner is safe for electronics and dries in a few minutes.

[BostonMike7]

I recently "restored" the taillights on my 26 year old Mustang. It had dim lights, but the issue wasn't the bulb. The chrome reflective paint used on the inside of the plastic taillight housing had faded over the years. It wasn't reflective anymore.

I had to disassemble the taillight, clean and respray the housing with chrome paint, and reassemble.

It made a HUGE difference in light output.