|
Quite some time ago, yet I can post with teh images ...
Uncle Dan Pageda, to answer yer question here...
And yes, me likes to post some stooopid, if irate, yet (hopefully) funny (to y'all) stuff.
You know, where your 240, usually sedan or tudor coupe, tail lights, like all seven sets of them, are all somehow sort of screwy:
- With teh leaking gaskets and the toxoplasmosis (that's a cat vector disease)
- For so equipped, you have one of the three versions of teh flexible printed circuit boards, and they are all screwey as they've been wet, and maybe were incorrectly wired up to use the dual filament (running or position filament with brake light filament) or single brake light filament)
- Teh 'studs' supposedly secured to the black brake light ABS plastic housing are pulling through the fractured plastic as you applied slightly more than .5 inch-pounds to secure the brake light assembly to the body of the car in the hopes you have just enough compression on the gasket to keep the water out.
- The color lens material is not so clear as nearly 30 years of teh UV on teh outside has deteriorated the plastic to a dull, frail, crazed haze, while the silver reflector material has faded to black from the years or water getting inside teh lens compartment, usually the brake light lens compartment on the six-panel sedan or soupe lights from like 1982-93 onward.
- While you may well know it, while at some gas station doing a fill up, you find your clear reverse light lens has somehow fallen off, when at anytime in the last few years you could have wriggled it free with your finger, cleaned it and the ABS plastic bits, and used an adhesive like Goop Marine or RV to resecure the clear reverse light lens as preventative maintenance on your 240 or 700 series with the 1982-83 onward lights.
- You have at least three Volvo 240s, and you find, that at least two of the three 240s have exterior lighting problems, so you spend all your free time for at least two weeks removing, cleaning, gleaning from the local junkyard, any bits of Volvo later Volvo 240 1982-83 sic panel lights or any 700 series tail lights (we can't cross-pollinate between teh 200 to 700 series, yet the 700 series sometimes has the same problems, not as severely, though), finding color lenses falling off, so you can use silver paint to brighten the reflector area, and re-secure the lens with Goop Marine or RV.
- For at least the fiftieth umpteenth time, you have to futz with the tail light wire harness connector where it connects to the tail light assembly with some crimping action, or flow some solder across the worn and weary copper contacts as we all know just how feeble and not so good an idea some Volvo electrical engineer got in Gothenburg (Swedish: Göteborg) in the late 1970s to go from the sturdy galvanized steel electric grid of the pre 1982-83 Volvo 240 tail lights to the flexi-printed circuit board.
- You verify and reverify all grounds, for both front and rear exterior lighting, are good.
- You DO understand the different in the six-panel rear brake light socket (lower, outer panel) when it is the 1982-83+ single filament or the (1987?) 1988-1989+ dual filament brake light bulb, and how the flexi printed circuit board is different as well as the bayonet mount socket where the plastic bulb carrier physically secures to the brake light house with a twist. White bulb holder right vehicle side and black goes to left vehicle side.***
Cause you drive a Volvo, and after the mighty Volvo founder and leaders Assar Thorvald Nathanael Gabrielsson and Erik Gustaf Larson passed from this life and as the leaders of the early safe Volvo, you know your exterior lighting is the next most important thing to solid brakes, so your Volvo 240, or any Volvo, is as safe as it can be, in spite of some of the knucklehead engineering Volvo has done since the mid-1970s, like dealing with tail lights on the 1982-1984+ 240s and the 700s with similar problems, and those flexi-circuit boards, and the leaking gaskets, and the anemic and feeble tail light assembly to auto sheet metal securing hardware, the crappy after market or lights, and so on.
So TAIL LIGHT MADNESS. No, it is not a fear of getting pulled over by your local honorable peace officer so that officer write you up a fix-it ticket, and that may happen, its that you, a RWD or other Volvo owner, ensure and preserve the hard-won reputation of Volvo safety, so your exterior lighting always works, is bright, and clear, so everyone sees you and, more importantly, your Volvo, while among the motoring public, no matter what.
And you see new automobiles, with all made in China lighting, exterior lighting housings, electronics, and so forth, on autos under 10 years old, and they have failed exterior lighting from a burned out taillight bulb, third brake light, and so on, and you take some pride that you're utterly certain your exterior lighting work flawlessly, and you work your duff off doing so, 'cause you are motorin' out and about in your Volvo, usually RWD. Usually a 240, yet all older RWD Volvo are part and parcel to it.
--
I have a 1991 and 1992 sedan 240s. In one week I find the passenger-side (N. American Market) housing on the 1992 is falling off as I torqued the feeble OEM factor Valeo housing mounting hardware slightly too tightly the last time I remove these housings to clean them, re-secure the rear clear reverse light lens to the housings after paining up the reflector bowl with silver paint, and then the tail lights on the (official kittys medium metallic grey) 1991 Volvo 240 went fruity. I had four or six extra 1982-83+ (when Volvo employed the six-panel tail lights with the flexi PC boards) sedan / coupe (242). I had to pool all of these before me. Both sedans had failed tail lights. So disassembled all of these assemblies removing the flexi circuit boards from tail light assemblies, using stupid JB Weld to secure the threaded stud-bolts into back into the ABS housing, and you discover again JB Weld is a JB Hoax. I mixed and match circuit boards, preserving the dual-filament rear brake light, and modified the bayonet socket mount on the black ABS plastic housing as I was using a pre-dual brake light filament tail light assembly, and after all this difficulty, and days waiting for the epoxy or the Goop Marine or RV (UV Resistance!) to cure, I bolted it all back on with better tail light gaskets, and voila! Working tail lights. They've worked now flawlessly for several years.
Volvo 240 TAIL LIGHT MADNESS!!!!!!!!! =^)
On the 1992, I had to bypass the bulb out test relay that illuminates the on-dash bulb failed light indicator. Guess what? All exterior lighting connected to the now bypassed bulb out relay sensor is much, much brighter. It only takes less than a minute to verify proper exterior lighting function, with also a propped brake pedal to illuminate the rear brake lights.
Uncle Professor Art Benstein has some info on his clean flame trap website as to bulb out sensor wiring, or a link to, that I had to better grasp for the final incarnation of the 240 sedan exterior lighting set up.
I also have a set of those made in Estonia 240 tail lights. The butyl-rubber like adhesive securing the lenses to the housing was failing, yet I find the actual black ABS reflector body and the acrylic or lucite lenses to be of good quality. I plan, if I have a place to do it, to paint the reflectors a bright silver again, and find a better adhesive than GOOP UV resistant Marine or RV to better handle the higher temps. Though GOOP Marine and RV versions have never failed any lighting application I repaired using GOOP Marin or RV adhesive.
It really comes down to being seen. Ensuring your auto exterior lighting work properly, is wired up as best as it can be, so it is as bright as can be, whether you have upgraded to LED lighting or not, is a really necessary thing, even on the clear nights of Summer. We all labor to keep these wee Swedish meatball beasties road worthy, and I'd rather not have some daffy quack smash into me and my 240 as that person may be a little sloe from the gin, so I keep the exterior lighting as best as I'm able.
*** And with the dual-filament brake light bulbs, the white brake light bulb holder goes into the N. American market passenger (right vehicle) side and the black bulb holder on the driver (left vehicle) side.
*** You reverse these, or do not install correct bulb holders with the correct circuit boards with the proper bulbs (dual filament or single filament), you can melt the brake light lens and the housing.
*** The Volvo 240 wagon tail lights are more durable. Yet for the dual filament brake lights, again, like the sedans, the white bulb holder goes on the right vehicle side, and the black bulb holder goes into the left brake light of the tail light assembly.
Probably needs a decision flowchart or algorithm to make sense of it all, with pictures.
Questions?
Hope that helps. All rather extemporaneous.
And would be excellent fodder for that genuine Volvo 200 series FAQ I wish someone would embark on. I have MS Office professional 2003, so I can do long manuals with illustration as LibreOffice Writer 4.x.x still blows when you have vector or any graphics drawings in it. Office 2010, if configured properly at the template and style level, now competes with the now ruined Adobe FrameMaker since version 9 and newer. (I have Frame version 3 I bought for work years ago.) You just can't do structured or DITA/XML authoring, content management, and publishing with MS Word, still, if DITA/XML is all that. And DITA/XML is not all that at all. Unless you have yer DITA tag schema all worked up, export your MS Weird 2010/2013 as XML, and go to town!
Microsoft! The company that is now the least evil!
Google! Bein' EVIL when they said, "well try to not be teh EVIL!"
But I'd rather save my carpal tunnel wrists for the regular day to day Grumpy Technical Writer job.
Sorry for the long reply.
Grumpy Technical Writer has teh grumpy Volvo 240 tail lights.
----
Them damm Volvo 240 sedan six panel taillights has got teh GRUMPIES and makein' me krazy and given' me teh Volvo 240 TAILLIGHT MADNESS
And a huge thanks to Jarrod S for making this post possible!
![](https://i.chzbgr.com/maxW500/3593034240/h7F766981/")
Volvo 240 TAIL LIGHT MADNESS!!!!!!!!! =^)
Me loves them markup languages!
We have another madness ....
Volvo RWD Amplifier Madness!
Thanks to Mr. Jarrod S. for making this all possible!
|
