Saving Big Bucks! - DIY Bulb Socket Repair

Hey guys! In-between writing, filming, and editing, I found a pretty fun way to procrastinate, and I thought it'd be worth sharing with you all here. 

Elyse just got a brand new (to her) 2015 Mini Cooper S! His name is Dale. Dale was only $7500, which is crazy because you really can't find a current gen Coop (F56) for below 10 grand, at least here in Houston.

When things seem too good to be true, they often are. There's a whole laundry list of little things wrong with it, but basically this car was not taken very good care of and after some sleuthing, we found that it's been in a minor accident in the front. 

What was supposed to be a fun, little daily driver replacement has turned into a mini (ha) project of it's own. The first little repair was a quick and fun one! The driver side-marker does not light up like it's supposed to. Just change the bulb, right?

Well, the bulb definitely is burnt out, but it's extremely crusty. Yikes. We replaced this with a brand new one, but there was still no light coming on. The issue is probably with the bulb socket then.

I wish I took a photo of the little socket before I cleaned it, but this thing was disgusting! The metal contacts for the bulb were completely caked in grime, and there was a rusty, orange hue to everything. It was like it was underwater or something. After some mineral spirits scrubbing and a little bit of blasting cabinet action, it cleaned up rather nicely and the contacts looked great.

It was here that I realized the issue wasn't just the gross contacts for the bulb, but that the little metal protrusions that plug into the wiring harness were pretty much non-existent. One was completely missing and the other one was rusted to just a stub. 

I went to my local Mini dealer to buy a quick replacement, but it turns out that they don't sell just the bulb housing. You have to buy the full side-marker for $80 which happens to come with a new bulb housing. I guess if you desperately need a new one and you have loads of money to spare on a tiny piece of plastic, then there's your solution. I am neither that desperate nor do I have that kind of money. I told the clerk no and promptly left. Here's where the DIY part begins! I started clipping away at the plastic surround of the connector to see if the inner part of the metal prongs were good. You can barely make out the little stub here. 

After snipping off the rest of the little pieces and taking some time with the bench grinder, we're left with the little guy exposing his strips. And they're clean! The plan is to take some leftover breadboard jumper wires that came with an Arduino kit and solder them onto here.

Just to make sure it would actually be worth it, I tested a jumper into the receptacle in the harness. It's a good snug fit, so it should be good to go! (You can see here the same rusty hue that was on the bulb socket before I cleaned it)

The only thing left to do now is to go to town with the soldering iron. 

To add some strain relief, I globbed on a bunch of hot glue. I just realized this probably also makes it watertight, which should help prevent it from getting to be a crusty mess again.

I plugged into the harness, threw a new bulb into the socket and woo! It works exactly as it's supposed to. 

Just to clean things up a bit and to make sure the wires stay plugged into the harness, I wrapped everything in electrical tape. Not too shabby!

I put the bulb back in the maker and the maker back onto the car.

And did another test to make sure it's still good!

Dale has happy, functioning turn signals now. Technically it wasn't a super huge issue since the front and rear signals still worked fine (albeit blinking fast because of this broken guy), but it's good to know that everything is working as it should now. 

I'm sure I could've just snipped off the female connector and soldered the wires directly to the housing, but I opted for the jumper style repair so it would be non-destructive. If I ever win the lottery and buy a new one or come across an F56 Mini at a junkyard, I can always just swap over a factory fresh one instead of my Frankenstein creation.

Saving money is cool, but the joy of coming up with creative solutions and making something broken work again is even cooler. What many would consider trash or "needs to be replaced" can often just be fixed with only a little bit of time. I hope this could be of some help to someone, either with the rare occurrence that you have the exact same issue or maybe by pushing you to think twice about throwing something out.

Now, onto the repairing the brakes! I mean back to editing!