i guess i did something i wasn't supposed to do

stumpy

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those brilliant bean counters at ford got away with putting 2 clips on what is essentially a rectangle hanging from the headliner.
i changed the 2 dome lights but due to the fore mentioned asses at ford, the clipless end is now hanging down about 1/2".
i think glue was holding it tight because i don't see broken plastic anywhere and didn't hear any snapping when it came down.
who has done this before? what did you do to put it back on tight?

gen2 v6 no moonroof
 
There are in-fact four holding things, one close to each corner. The two in the back are quite small, and are very difficult to get to snap back in. The problem is that there is a piece of plastic glued to the headliner that the back of the light snaps into. That piece comes unglued. If you had a moonroof, you would be able to use a screw driver to hold the plastic piece down while you pushed the light up, so that it would snap in. I guess you'll have to glue the plastic piece back to the headliner (not the light to the headliner). Maybe Gorilla Glue?
 
those brilliant bean counters at ford got away with putting 2 clips on what is essentially a rectangle hanging from the headliner.

Another Monday-morning engineer chimes in.....
 
Thanks guys. Sorry for the rant.
So I was able to fix my issue. I had to push the back part, at both (non-clip containing) corners, with the "way-too-much-but-always-correct-man-grunting-amount" of force. It had to be enough to cause bowing into the headliner and all of its fantastic plastic. I head the satisfying click of plastic into plastic.
And I did put some drops of superglue into there as well, so I'm hoping these LEDs I used to replace the dome lights actually last their eleventy million hour lifetime.
 
If they fit into the normal incadescent receptacle and were under $20 each from a no-name supplier, then chances are they will not last their 100,000 hours lifespan. They are typically over-driven to make them brighter and cooler-looking while running hotter. I put 4 5x5050 SMD "towers" in my other car's 168 bulb sockets (4 bulb sockets, each LED "bulb" has 5x "5050" LEDs). 3 individual LEDs have burned out or flicker. Meanwhile, a panel of 3528 LEDs in the festoon socket are fine, but also run hot. For now.

I'm not saying yours will fail, but it's not something I would trust enough to glue in place. But I try to plan for failure, even when I use something that should actually last forever. I plan on making my own LED replacements rather than risk another cheap bulb or spend 3x as much on VLEDs. Morimotos are cheaper, but I don't trust COBs (yet)

By all means, good luck though. I got 2-3 years out of the 168s and they still work, they're just not fully working
 
If they fit into the normal incadescent receptacle and were under $20 each from a no-name supplier, then chances are they will not last their 100,000 hours lifespan. They are typically over-driven to make them brighter and cooler-looking while running hotter. I put 4 5x5050 SMD "towers" in my other car's 168 bulb sockets (4 bulb sockets, each LED "bulb" has 5x "5050" LEDs). 3 individual LEDs have burned out or flicker. Meanwhile, a panel of 3528 LEDs in the festoon socket are fine, but also run hot. For now.

I'm not saying yours will fail, but it's not something I would trust enough to glue in place. But I try to plan for failure, even when I use something that should actually last forever. I plan on making my own LED replacements rather than risk another cheap bulb or spend 3x as much on VLEDs. Morimotos are cheaper, but I don't trust COBs (yet)

By all means, good luck though. I got 2-3 years out of the 168s and they still work, they're just not fully working

If an LED flickers it is usually a poor connection to the resistor,,"usually" :)
 
If an LED flickers it is usually a poor connection to the resistor,,"usually" :)

Probably, but trying to fix them is a PITA and probably not worth fixing over replacing (well, unless you're me and a glutton for this kind of thing). Mine use 5050 LED chips, which have 3 LEDs and 6 contacts in an SMD package, reflowed to a tiny circuit board, which is then soldered to 4 other boards. You can't really resolder them with a soldering iron because the other 5 solidified solder joints will hold the chip in place and make bridging the gap difficult. The next option is a heat gun to melt all 6 points at the same time, but then there is a good chance you'll also melt the solder holding the boards together and have the whole thing fall apart. And being 5050 sized LEDs, they're 5x5x1mm squares that you can only hold with tweezers... maybe.

If you recall, I actually bought red versions of those 5x5050 168 LED bulbs and replaced each individual LED with orange for my dash using a heat gun (and had a couple start to fall apart). Searching "orange 168" on eBay only returned "amber/orange 168" which was just amber/yellow. While most non-working orange LEDs were due to a bad connection, Some of them were actually turning off, cooling down, and turning back on. The cycle would be 5 seconds on, 20 off or so. They were over-driven and not responding well. They were too hot to touch.

My dome light LEDs also don't sit in the socket properly and require a Fonzi hit every once in a while.

Soldering SMDs sucks and some of my dash lights don't stay on now. As a result I'm coming up with a new design for the gauge cluster using Superflux LEDs placed as needed, instead of clusters placed where the original bulbs were. I'm also going to hit the HVAC board with the heat gun and try and fix a couple of intermittent LEDs there, too (... also my work replacing with orange).

Then again, I put much more scrutiny and negativity on anything I either made/modified or believe I can modify to be better than how I bought it...
 
Probably, but trying to fix them is a PITA and probably not worth fixing over replacing (well, unless you're me and a glutton for this kind of thing). Mine use 5050 LED chips, which have 3 LEDs and 6 contacts in an SMD package, reflowed to a tiny circuit board, which is then soldered to 4 other boards. You can't really resolder them with a soldering iron because the other 5 solidified solder joints will hold the chip in place and make bridging the gap difficult. The next option is a heat gun to melt all 6 points at the same time, but then there is a good chance you'll also melt the solder holding the boards together and have the whole thing fall apart. And being 5050 sized LEDs, they're 5x5x1mm squares that you can only hold with tweezers... maybe.

If you recall, I actually bought red versions of those 5x5050 168 LED bulbs and replaced each individual LED with orange for my dash using a heat gun (and had a couple start to fall apart). Searching "orange 168" on eBay only returned "amber/orange 168" which was just amber/yellow. While most non-working orange LEDs were due to a bad connection, Some of them were actually turning off, cooling down, and turning back on. The cycle would be 5 seconds on, 20 off or so. They were over-driven and not responding well. They were too hot to touch.

My dome light LEDs also don't sit in the socket properly and require a Fonzi hit every once in a while.

Soldering SMDs sucks and some of my dash lights don't stay on now. As a result I'm coming up with a new design for the gauge cluster using Superflux LEDs placed as needed, instead of clusters placed where the original bulbs were. I'm also going to hit the HVAC board with the heat gun and try and fix a couple of intermittent LEDs there, too (... also my work replacing with orange).

Then again, I put much more scrutiny and negativity on anything I either made/modified or believe I can modify to be better than how I bought it...

Yeh,,i'm a glutton for punishment with this stuff also !!

my setup has the built in heat gun with diff size nozzles , makes surface mount easier..

how about a 5mm led to some fiber optic ?? :)
 
Yeh,,i'm a glutton for punishment with this stuff also !!

my setup has the built in heat gun with diff size nozzles , makes surface mount easier..

how about a 5mm led to some fiber optic ?? :)

For the dome lights? Probably too dim to do anything. I do kinda want to make a starry night sky display in the headliner with fiber optic, but it's by far the hardest project to justify on the LS right now haha. For the front maps I think I'm going to use a single 1W LED in each side and for the rear dome a single row of 12 Superfluxes. Or just fill everything with superfluxes...
 

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