Blinka-blinka-blinka

It’s human nature to notice coincidences. Sometimes we bestow special meaning on the coincidences.

Well, for some reason, the past couple of weeks I’ve thought about the Rolling Steel Tent’s turn signal bulbs. Hmmmm, how long has it been since I last replaced a bulb? How long before I’ll need to do that?

Then yesterday afternoon, while running errands in Yuma, I noticed the dashboard light for my right turn signal was blinking very rapidly, which indicates a bad bulb. Well, there’s that question answered.

But was it the front or rear signal? I hoped it was the front one because it’s easy to change. Simply push a tab on the light assembly, popping it out of the grill. Then just give the socket a quarter turn to remove it and reveal the bulb. The rear lights require unbolting a trim panel and the taillight assembly. Would I be able to find the correct wrench socket, or will it have disappeared, as 10mm sockets tend to do?

So I parked the van and flipped on the turn signal. A tour around the van revealed the front signal was the problem. Okay, easy. However I had forgotten there were two different sized bulbs: one for the turn signal and one for the running lights. I also didn’t remember which was which. I had only one size bulb.

Okay, so which bulb has the broken filament? Um, neither of them. Huh? Well, all I could do at that point is replace the bulb that was the same size as the spare I had. When I removed that bulb I saw what must have been the problem. The connector end of the bulb was blackened. Something had gotten too hot, melting an internal wire. I hadn’t seen this phenomenon before.

I popped in the new bulb and, presto, everything worked properly. I suppose the wise thing would be to replace all the bulbs now. Or to at least make sure I have enough spares of the right size. And a few 10mm sockets.