Hi all,
I followed the running board LED light thread and ordered some of those LED's for me as my drivers side lights were out.
I went to change the bulb and...Well I ended up with a bigger mess than I had anticipated. I pulled the bulb sockets and had lot of water run down my arm. I checked the sockets and they were corroded to the point of needing replaced. So,,,where did the water come from? the lens are cracked at the bottom. Ok, now do I just change the socket or replace the whole shootin match so I dont have the same problem a year from now? of course, I do it right

I am going to try my best at running through the process of changing the lens for the running board lights, yes I even have pictures and I will be very surprised if I can figure out how to get them to show up on here.

Anyway, I looked around and found this:

eBay - New & used electronics, cars, apparel, collectibles, sporting goods & more at low prices

These are NOT OEM and are probably not the best of the best. I figured I would try them anyway.
I sent for a pair which included new sockets and regular bulbs $15.00 a pair.

First thing I encountered was the protective plate that covers the backside of the light unit (under the running board).
https://www.ford-trucks.com/forums/p...ictureid=84500

The wonderful midwest made removing these a pain....It is held on by three bolts..and a considerable amount of rust. Two are through the running board mounts and have the bolt heads in a channel not accesable. The nuts are exposed and in my case the bolt heads twisted inside the channel so I could not get the bolts to come loose. The third bolt goes into a steel slip that is clipped ont the plastic edge of the running board, this too was rusted and ended up twisting out of the plastic. Be careful I hope you have better luck than I did! I sawzalled the bolts off and pushed the heads out of the channel leaving about a 3/16" hole.

The next sight was this:
https://www.ford-trucks.com/forums/p...ictureid=84488

Now I had already removed the bulb socket due to the amount of corrosion I found when I first tried to just change the bulbs.

The lens are held in by four plastic clips moulded into the lens unit. You can feel them from under the running board. I used a small screwdriver to help release these and pushed the old lens out through the top of the running board.
https://www.ford-trucks.com/forums/p...ictureid=84495

If you have sockets in nice shape you can use your original ones. If you have my luck then you will have to splice new sockets into the existing wiring. If you have to do this I suggest using heat shrink tubing and solder the wires together, then cover the solder joint with the heat shrink tubing apply heat to shrink and there you are. Some my use the crimp on butt connectors, this is not wrong, but I have found soldering although it takes more time is worth the effort!

I compared the original lens with the new one and found the size was about spot on.

https://www.ford-trucks.com/forums/p...ictureid=84494

You can see the crack at the bottom of the lens which when cracked this way holds a great deal of water inside!

The new lens:
https://www.ford-trucks.com/forums/p...ictureid=84493

Alpinetech is the wording on the bottom of the lens.
Found this on the net which is the distributor
Alpinetech - Custom Design and Engineering
Out of Irvine, Ca. my $ stayed in America

I snapped the lens in the running board and the fit looked pretty impressive.
https://www.ford-trucks.com/forums/p...ictureid=84503

Installed the new socket using LED bulbs, purchased on E bay but cant find the URL.

https://www.ford-trucks.com/forums/p...ictureid=84489

Wired it all up and I left the steel protective plates off for a day and wanted to paint them up nice so no pics of re-install of them.
Be careful when re-installing these plates as the light wiring runs through one of the channels where the bolt head resides. If you break or cut the bolts off due to rust like I had to do, you may want to consider using a different method of re-attaching the plate. I beleive I will be using the plastic push in type fastners like door panels use. If you use screws they may run into the wires causing issues!


Here are some pics (not very good) but you can see a difference from the old yellowed passenger side of my EX.
https://www.ford-trucks.com/forums/p...ictureid=84499

compared to the new white light driver side.
https://www.ford-trucks.com/forums/p...ictureid=84498

For the $15.00 I think it is a decent investment. All we can do is wait to see how long they last and how durable they are.

Sorry if I bored ya, but I thought....what the heck why not share.


Thanks
Robb

 

Nice work. Thanks for the info on the lens. I love my leds.

 

Cool. I remember you posting on the running board led forum about your issue.
Glad that you were able to get it taken care off.
Lights look good especially with the led"s

Nice work.

Reps sent

 

Just got the running board lens from ebay. Looks very nice. Thanks again for the info on them.

 

HELP!!!! I have a 2002 Ford Expedition with running boards. I want to replace the bulbs with LEDs. I am not sure of the size of the bulbs to replace them with. What is the correct size of the running board light bulbs?

 

Wouldn't know, ask in the tiny SUV forum. The little Explorers and Expeditions have their own cute little section