David Trebacz Blog

Our 2007 Dodge Caliber had a taillight that would get foggy looking. We could see water on the inside of the taillight, that couldn't be good for the electrical connectors. I took the light out once (two black plastics "screws" inside the trunk area -then remove the three bulbs from their sockets), emptied it, dried it and looked for cracks. I couldn't find any, so I put it back int the car. Same problem of condensation inside the lens, after the next rain. I figured I had little to loose if I caulked the taillight. First, I made the assembly was fully dry. I used a hair dryer through the bulb holes to get all the condensation out of the taillight. I used 100% silicone bathroom caulk. A good quality sealant, that could be used to seal much tougher things. Here is the taillight removed (shown from the back side). See the two tabs where the screws held it in. Start a silicone bead in the upper part of the Caliber taillight assembly. I filled the channel completel...

Our Dodge Durango heater control dashboard lights went out. One half of the push button lights didn't illuminate at night making it real hard to see what heater control switch you needed to press when it was dark out. Turns out there are regular light bulbs in the dash. The process to replace them takes maybe 15 minutes if your careful and follow directions. I bought led replacement bubs for mine from www.autolumination.com . I ended up ordering part number  Neowedge SMT Led , Color: Green , Lens: Type C Led . Got them shipped to me for less than $10 for two. They are bit hard to find on their web page. I did find that I needed to shave the plastic on the locking tab slightly to get them to lock into the circuit board. Good news is it's unlikely I'll ever have to replace them again. To start the process remove two black screws (9/32 socket) underneath above the storage area. From the bottom carefully pull the whole p...