Project KE30: Solidarity of rear lights

Now it's time to cast a little bit more light on the matter of... lighting, which generally works fine let alone a small exception - the rear lights. I believe, if I am not mistaken, that I have mentioned this in one of the first posts, but if not, surely, it was easy to see it in the video of the reception of the car. The following video was shot after two-month stay in the garage and was the first opportunity for Toyota to take a breath of fresh air. The blame, for turning the high beam on and not turning the switch hard enough to get the sidelights, I put on the stress of appearing before such a large audience :-).

For a long time now, I meant to get to solving the problem with the rear lights. The problem appears when a right direction indicator is put into position. There must be a kind of short circuit and the right turn signal works, but accompanied by all the other rear lights. Oh, this lights solidarity. The following movie beautifully describes how it works mainly due to the night time. You have to look closely in order to see it because the blinking frequency decreases with the transition from right to left, but blinking on the left side can be seen. Frankly speaking, not only after I unscrew both rear lights panels did I saw with my own eyes that all lights are flashing - not only on the right side as I thought in the very beginning.

I asked among countless number of people, what could be causing this blinking problem, and all as one man said - grounding. Naturally, other answers were given as well, but "grounding" was the most frequent one without any doubt. The first think I did was cleaning contacts and I used this opportunity to have a better look at the rear lights on the right. Mariusz (you remember him from tires changing operation) told me where I could buy such a nice reinforced rubber gloves as he had and you can see them at work. I also cleaned light bulbs siled with paint after the last body spraying. There was a dramatic situation, though, as I let one fall to the fround, by accident of course, and it burst into pieces ;-(. I had to buy a new one and because I bought the wrong one, I learned there is somthing like filament in a bulb... joke: D. Double filament was needed. Now I have it. Thanks to that I also learnt the English word for it. Ha! I am so lucky and happy that TESCO is open 24h/day, except for of all sort of holidays, of course. So I cleaned the contacts, I saw how the cables go and I washed the lights cover on the inside and outside. I am pretty sure that those more observant of you, while looking at photos from April photo session, noticed that the right panel looks much better than the left one, not only because of the sun shining from the right side:-).

Basically it is everything I have for you today. No success story from that day, but some cool photos and a few interesting pieces :-). If anyone had any idea how to approach the subject I am willing to get the show on the road!