NCT item - condensation in tail lamp

Manuel

Hi,
Looking for some help here please.
There is water inside my tail lamp, which was a fail item in my NCT.
I've taken out the lamp and swished it around for hours (!) with some success in removing drops of water.

But there is still water trapped in what is essentially a watertight area. (I know, it must have got in from somewhere.)

Can anyone recommend what I can do, short of buying a new tail lamp?
Is it possible to prise off the "lamp" part from the unit and reseal it afterwards?

Could I use a small drill bit to drill thru the hard plastic and try and get it out like that??

Thanks,
/M.

Subcomandante Marcos

Out it in your hotpress op top of some dry towels for a few hours.

biko

Do you have a hair dryer?

Manuel

Thanks lads, but heating it just turns the water to vapour. It has nowhere to go so it's just going to cool again and I'm back to water or condensation?

Or am I missing something? Do you mean as a short term measure immediately before bringing it back to the NCT centre?

Thanks again.

doolox

Drill holes then dry in hot press or low oven 50-60 degrees then reseal holes with superglue or some other sealant.

biko

Remove the bulb from the lamp assembly, that should give you a big hole the water can escape from.

What car is this? Model? Pic of lamp from google images?

Manuel

Sorry, I forgot an important detail. The lens is completely watertight. It's a Seat Cordoba and the bulbs don't go in to the lense housing. The lense is all outside the bulbs, so there's no hole for the vapour to go out through. I'll take a photo.

Manuel

https://www.google.ie/search?q=seat+cordoba+tail+lights&espv=2&biw=1093&bih=545&source=lnms&tbm=isch&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwi9hsvFgdTKAhWF_Q4KHR8uBX8Q_AUIBigB#imgrc=z004xqadMmJidM%3A

The two bulbs are behind the sealed housing. There's no hole for the bulbs.

Thanks.

CJhaughey

I bet the welded plastic edge has failed some where along the seam.
Clean it well and go along the edge pulling and looking for a gap.
Once you find one dry it put and use Tec-7 or similar polyurethane sealant to seal it up again.

Manuel

Thanks for all the help.
I had to re-fit it for bringing the car to work in the morning, but I'll try some of those helpful hints tomorrow evening, and report back.
I'm tempted to go drilling, but knowing me I might end up with bigger problems :rolleyes: ...
/M.

JohnBoy26

Putting small hole on the bottom of the lamp should fix the issue.

thomas anderson.

This has happened to me. Put it on top of a radiator for a few hours then into the fridge to cool it back down. Sealed the edges with some clear nail varnish and, bosh, no more condensation

Manuel

I finally got this sorted in time for my NCT retest, but it was a serious pain in the arse. The main problem was that the water wasn't just sitting in the bottom of the lense, but it would get trapped around the edges and it was hard to direct either the water or the vapour in order to try to get it out.

I had to drill two small holes into the underside of the lense housing and even after that it took a lot of perseverance to tease the water and vapour out - a lot of heating and cooling, heating and cooling. Plus I now have lots of small unsightly bits of hard black and red plastic stuck inside the lense.

I think the low oven was a bad idea, because I now have visible streaks in my lense, basically internal cracks, where it must have been too hot even at 60 deg.

In the end the hairdryer was the best idea as you can direct the heat right at the particular area, and take it away before it gets too hot, but unfortunately this was the last approach I tried. Oven and hot press/radiator was very slow and laborious.

Thanks all. Painful in the extreme, but I suppose it was worth it in the end.

I hate cars (oops, sorry, that slipped out!) ...

Agricola

Recently had the exact same issue and NCT fail because of it. Only way to get out water droplets from near the edge of the lamp was to use a 2mm drill in the back plastic and then leave it under the stove for a night. Did the trick.