Rear Dome light, 01-lw300

Rear dome light went out again on the lw300. In the past I found that wiggling the diode in the left side fuse panel brought it back on. Tried it in the dark last night and the top part of the plastic package broke off in my hand. After managing to extract the remainder of the diode, found that the actual diode was only crimped into the terminals and that there was a poor connection that overheated the contacts and caused the plastic to get brittle.

Anybody know if the diode in a mini fuse package is available at an auto parts store or only a dealer item?

Thanks - Oppie

Reply to
Oppie
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You mean like this?

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I dont know who would have those locally.

Reply to
-Cronus-

That's the one. Haven't been able to go shopping yet but $2.50 plus shipping gives a good starting price. Thanks for the reply.

Reply to
oppie

Found this part

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Now just looking for stock somewhere.

Reply to
Oppie

This is completely nuts! I tried several auto parts stores and nobody had or even knew of the diode. One mechanic said to try Radio Shack (you know, the place where they say "you have questions, we have answers") and no dice there either.

Finally gave up and made one from an old mini blade fuse. ripped out the fuse link and with a razor blade, cut off the top 1/16" of the plastic housing. This exposed the pins at top for soldering in a new 1N4005 (1 amp,

200 piv) diode. The new assembly does not have the polarity protection that the original had. I made sure to add the polarity (the diode symbol) to the fuse box cover so it does not get confused.

Haven't tried it yet but would assume that if the diode is in reversed, opening a door will not turn on the rear cargo lamp (conversely, turning on the cargo lamp at the dome light will turn on the other interior lights).

Oppie

Reply to
Oppie

Cobbled up diode assembly I made in about 5 minutes with materials on hand works fine. The lamp actually runs brighter since the voltage was not being lost in a bad crimp in the original diode assembly. New diode also runs cool where the old one got so hot, it cracked the plastic case.

As written earlier, my homebrew part does not have the polarity key. Looking at the fuse panel, the polarity key is at the bottom of the diode socket. This would make the cathode (the side with the line on it) point to the left. Cathode ---I This is completely nuts! I tried several auto parts stores and nobody had

Reply to
Oppie

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