When the drive shaft whacked the side marker, one of the conductors in the bulb socket was crushed down into the bottom of the socket where it shorted against another pin inside the socket. It was this short that caused smoke to emanate from the gauge cluster whenever the lights were on. That specific loop in that bulb socket does not appear to be fused; every time I turned on the headlights before finding the bent pin, smoke would emanate from the gauge pod. It wasn't until I had done some quality botching on the pod that I found the root cause and un-bent the pin in that side marker socket.
It still blows my mind that the car got hit that hard -- the pipe/drive shaft section went through two layers of tire, took a chunk out of the wheel lip on that side, and blew up the side marker -- but did no paint/sheet metal damage.
32wildbilly wrote: ↑Mon Jun 11, 2018 5:21 pm I just gotta ask...was this when you were looking for the headlight wiring overheat/smoke issue or did the hi way pipe bounce up and knock out some dash lights, too? Regardless...nicely done.
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