Repair-It

One search of the Cadillac forum and you'll find plenty of folks who have had this issue.

I have decided this has gone far enough. And I'd like to fix it before it turns into an actual electrical issue.

Here's how bad it is now. I just pulled it into the garage (which the SRX says was 33 - it is ~10 or possibly 8 outside right now). Hopefully that ice will melt.

Maybe tomorrow I will pull the headlight and see if I can figure out what my particular cause is. It is time to fix this.

Luckily it didn't crack the plastic.

Ballast cover and gasket: 16533255.

I'll explain later.

Alright so I think this was the issue. As I predicted before, the ballast is on the side of the headlight on the STS which is why it never had any failures even with all the water in the headlight. But clearly the last person inside this ballast cover completely mangled the gasket upon installation and I think this was admitting water into the housing. At least, this is the only thing wrong that I could find.

Of course it is discontinued. The passenger side is not. Come on. Plan B. Black RTV. Moving along.

Then I had to finish melting all the ice. It did not melt overnight in my garage. Well some did. Then I rinsed the whole inside housing with distilled water. I just wanted to remove any contaminants and hopefully some water staining. Then let it all dry. That's looking better now. The patient waits. Plenty of room to work on normal size cars in my garage. There was room to walk behind the car and still this much in front of it. And this isn't a compact car. Just a shot of this for posterity. I thought it was funny to see the tire through the headlight cut out due to pulling the front wheel house. This is the harness that goes to the headlight assembly, then there is wiring internally to do whatever. Anyway this didn't look that great so I soaked it in contact cleaner, compressed air dried it, and goobered some dielectric grease on the pins. Look! This is my black RTV solution. I put a bead under the gasket, and then on top of it. That should work. And leave a mess to clean up if I have to replace the ballast some day. If this actually keeps water out, maybe that will be years. The other end at the housing. The ballast looks totally different than the SRX FWIW. All covered up. Just one screw. A close look at some of the smooshed RTV. I'll leave the car in the garage overnight which maybe will give it a slightly better chance to cure properly. By the way, I am really liking this old digital camera. It focuses so well, the strobe flash is great and it's just nice not to have to bother getting grease all over my phone. The small inconvenience of transferring the pictures to my computer is WELL worth it (the phone auto uploads to Onedrive). Ah now that is so much better! This better have fixed it. Look, no pool! Another shot. Even better - it looks just like the passenger side now. Here is one of the inner wheel houses I pulled out (didn't have to do this on the SRX...). Take a look at that date. Clearly this car had some kind of front end accident. Before I reattached the bumper fascia, I decided to clean the fascia and the fender where they meet to prevent abrasion stuff. Here it is all reinstalled. So nice for this to be dry. I will be quite pleased if it stays this way. Oh, here's some bonus stuff. This fell out of the lower wheel house area. Looks like a windshield washer cap or something. Also check this out. I've had this CFL shop light for at least 10 years. Probably more. It was just a $20 one from Walmart. Never replaced the bulb. Finally the cord has failed (ask me how I found out). I MIGHT try to tape it up. Not sure yet. Light still works. How about that?

That camera takes much better photos than your phone does in its current state.

One trick I forgot was to tape a couple packets of desiccant inside the light. If I have recurring condensation issues I will consider it. Obviously it won't solve a gross leak.

Adam wrote:That camera takes much better photos than your phone does in its current state.

It probably helps that the camera sensor has a 40% larger diagonal than my phone, even though it is 10 years old.

I was thinking about this. Aside from the front lens developing a leak against the housing (which mine does not appear to have), I wonder if all leaks on these cars are from carelessness when changing bulbs.

Road test report: The low beams are noticeably improved with that nice broad light I expect from HID projectors. Surprisingly the high beam is not as improved. Maybe because that light was already more diffuse.

The moisture came back but not the water level. So that's good I guess.

I pulled the headlight this afternoon. There was a few ounces of water, unfortunately. This time I took everything out, rinsed it several times with windshield washer fluid, then distilled water a few times. Then I used my leaf blower for a while and finally a hair dryer.

I did disconnect the little "peanut" bulb also and noticed that plug was a little corroded from previous water immersion. The bulb also didn't look too great though it was working. When it put it back, it didn't work. I think one of the terminals got messed up. So off I went to Herb Chambers Cadillac to get the proper W5W bulb. It is like a 194 but 5W and the bulb is tinted blue to bring the color temp up to around 3000K (which is still fairly yellow).

When I put all that back together, I tried the low beams. The left one was out! ARGH! I tried a new bulb. No dice. Ok, I've seen this before. Maybe water got on the ballast before I pulled it. So I ran the hair dryer into the assembly after everything was already installed (including a reapplication of RTV for the ballast cover, which I had to pull off at least 3 times during this job, after applying a new bead, double sigh). That seemed to work. Put it all back in and test drove. Works great, nice and clear.

Oh, I threw like 6 dessicant packets in there. I swished water carefully around the perimeter of the front lens and never saw any leakage. But if this repair doesn't hold, I will likely bite the bullet and find a clean junkyard replacement. V3 at the dealer! Old stock XT5s. That is sad. When I pulled up to snag the last pic, these two salesman started coming out of the dealer. Perhaps I looked suspicious in my 96 Roadmaster with zero window tint after purchasing a $9 bulb </sarcasm>.