High Mount (3rd) Brake Light

[BlueOvalFitter]

The brake light bulb has been out on my 3rd brake light for awhile. Being my truck is coming up for its inspection I decided to replace it last night. I didn't think it was going to take me 2 days to do what should have been a very simple fix.
After removing the 2 fastener screws I had to pry it away from the cab/roof! Yes, I had to PRY it! Back when my truck was under warranty I noticed water was leaking around the inside of the rear window. I took it to the dealer and they subbed the repair out to a local glass company. What they did was retain the factory POS gasket and siliconed the sh** out of it and put it back together. What started out as a simple bulb replacement at 4 pm yesterday until 8:30 last night turned into a completed job after 1-1/2 hours this morning.
I went through 3 scotch brite pads, 2 pot scrubber pads, a whole 16 oz bottle of alcohol, 2.5' of 1/4" thick X 1/2" wide insulation tape, 7 shop towels, a roll of paper towels, and 2 tubes of industrial clear silicone caulk. Oh, and 3 new Sylvania Long Life #912 bulbs.
Let's just say that the next time any of the 3rd brake light bulbs go out and I need to replace them I will need a whole new light!

 

[GiveMeAVowel]

Originally Posted By: BlueOvalFitter
Back when my truck was under warranty I noticed water was leaking around the inside of the rear window. I took it to the dealer and they subbed the repair out to a local glass company. What they did was retain the factory POS gasket and siliconed the sh** out of it and put it back together.t!


And dealers wonder why customers coined the more suitable term of
"$tealership".

The fact that that dealer let another company do a shoddy job and then hand you back your vehicle without checking their work says it all.

 

[BlueOvalFitter]

Originally Posted By: GiveMeAVowel
Originally Posted By: BlueOvalFitter
Back when my truck was under warranty I noticed water was leaking around the inside of the rear window. I took it to the dealer and they subbed the repair out to a local glass company. What they did was retain the factory POS gasket and siliconed the sh** out of it and put it back together.t!


And dealers wonder why customers coined the more suitable term of
"$tealership".

The fact that that dealer let another company do a shoddy job and then hand you back your vehicle without checking their work says it all.


Yeah, and this happened back in April 2007. My truck only had about 50 miles on it. I bought it new off of the lot with 6 miles on it.

 

[exranger06]

In the shop's defense, the light would've just leaked again if they hadn't siliconed it. The factory gaskets are junk. Do yourself a huge favor and buy an aftermarket LED light housing. The factory lights are junk. Not only are the gaskets junk, but the 912 bulbs are a horrible design. The bulbs wiggle around in the sockets too much and sometimes don't make good contact, which results in them lighting up only half the time, even if the bulbs are good. I dealt with both issues on my Ranger, and eventually installed a Putco LED unit. It was the best upgrade I ever did to my truck.

 

[BlueOvalFitter]

Originally Posted By: exranger06
In the shop's defense, the light would've just leaked again if they hadn't siliconed it. The factory gaskets are junk. Do yourself a huge favor and buy an aftermarket LED light housing. The factory lights are junk. Not only are the gaskets junk, but the 912 bulbs are a horrible design. The bulbs wiggle around in the sockets too much and sometimes don't make good contact, which results in them lighting up only half the time, even if the bulbs are good. I dealt with both issues on my Ranger, and eventually installed a Putco LED unit. It was the best upgrade I ever did to my truck.

I can't afford a new light right now. And, the 912 bulbs in my light sockets were so tight I thought I was going to need channel locks to remove them.
Believe me, I started a "New 3rd Brake Light" savings fund as of today! And, it WILL have LED lights in it!

 

[The_Jeff]

I've fitted a couple of these really dopey LED 3rd lights from ebay . Not DOT listed, but bright, but with a narrow up-and-down field of view for that level of brightness.

 

[MNgopher]

Sad. The actual repair would have involved ordering the entire lamp assembly with a new gasket. Did that on my '04 F150 that was leaking. No problems many years since.

And agree on the bulbs in this one - they are extremely tight - no looseness problems to speak of...

 

[01rangerxl]

Originally Posted By: MNgopher
Sad. The actual repair would have involved ordering the entire lamp assembly with a new gasket. Did that on my '04 F150 that was leaking. No problems many years since.


Yeah, under warranty the correct thing to do would be to install a new lamp assembly. With careful and clean assembly, most high mount lamps will be leak free for a while (3-4 years), but I have seen many sealed up with silicone on various pickups. It's a common problem, and silicone is a common "fix," but shouldn't be acceptable under warranty.

Might be interesting to dig up your copy of the repair order and see what they put on there. I wonder if they just did this as a "goodwill" thing to make you go away and make sure the truck wouldn't come back any time soon. I can't imagine Ford paying out on a warranty claim for this kind of part without that part being billed on there. If Ford did consider this an appropriate way to fix this, that's pretty [censored].

Whenever I take the high mount lamp off one of my trucks, I thoroughly clean the gasket with a vinyl/rubber cleaner/protectant (like Mother's VLR, 303, or similar), clean off and sometimes wax/buff the part of the cab where the lamp mounts, and every other time or so I replace the nylon nuts that pop into the cab. I have a bulk box of the nylon nuts I got from the Auveco distributor for something like $5. Doing this, the lamps don't leak into the cab during heavy rain, and I have gotten as much as four years out of the brake lamp bulb and longer for the cargo lamps.

The gaskets on these lamps just don't leave much room for error, on any pickup. The cab is going to flex some, dirt collects around the gasket and works its way through, the foam type gaskets flatten over time, etc. Without a clean installation they will leak in short order.