1966 Lincoln Continental 'Land Yacht'

Taillight Repairs

Since owning this car the left side taillight unit has always acted flakey. After adding sequencers to the taillights it was evident that repairs were needed. I removed the grill and red lens, then removed the three 1157 light bulbs. What I found was that the black plastic insulator base that held the contacts was brittle, cracked and falling apart. In several of the sockets the contacts and springs were rusted and nonmoving.

I decided the best course was to replace the 1157 sockets completely, but I was unable to find any direct replacements. The quality of the 1157 sockets I did find was unacceptable. The original sockets were made of (I am assuming) thick brass or copper plated steel. All replacements were made from thin pressed metal that is very flimsy and flexible. I finally decided my best option was to replace just the plastic base and spring mechanism that holds the bulb in place.

For this I would disassemble and use the inside of the replacement sockets that I purchased (just the insulating base, contacts & wires & spring)

The bumper is removed from the car, 8 bolts in the trunk and 4 underneath. It weighs between 80 and 100 lbs, so it is best to have help before removing all the bolts.

Remove the 4 bolts holding the taillight assembly to the bumper and remove. You should also remove the grill and red lens at this point if you have not already done so.

You can see that the recess where the bulb sits looks good at first glance. I had previously painted the reflectors with silver/metal paint to even out the light distribution.

The assembly completely out of the bumper.

The defective socket, you can see the cracks in the insulating base.

From the back side of the reflector, the wires holding the contacts just twisted out and separated from the base. (This piece will be cut out and discarded, but make note of which contact wires into which part of the harness, or you may get your running & brake light wires mixed up.)

I have carefully removed the socket from the tail light housing to make pictures easier to see (I would not recommend removing the socket unless you absolutely need to). The original wires with the contacts & springs are cut off and discarded. Cut the wires out of the wiring harness at a good point for attaching the replacements.

I added heat shrink to the new wires/contacts for added protection against shorts.These wires are the internals from the cheap 1157 replacement socket that I was originally going to use to replace the whole assembly.

I added heat shrink to hold the two wires together.

The heatshrinked wires are inserted into the spring, then into the socket completing the new assembly. From this point the red & black wires are spliced back into the wiring harness where the originals were cut out above. I soldered and heatshrinked all connections to eliminate any future connection problems..

Crude but effective test of the lamp. Note that once the assembly is inserted back into the tail light fixture, the fixture itself becomes the ground for the light. The two wires from the light are for tail light and brake/blinker lights.

When reassembled, there is no visible difference from the original setup.