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3rd Brake light


weslangdon
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MOT time on the Lupo TDI Sport, advisory on the 3rd brake light, I've got the replacement bulbs but the whole thing is cracking up with age, do I buy a new unit, or can I legally tape it up, the car is black so black gaffer tape will conceal it, I know that it will fall apart if I try to remove it.

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17 minutes ago, weslangdon said:

MOT time on the Lupo TDI Sport, advisory on the 3rd brake light, I've got the replacement bulbs but the whole thing is cracking up with age, do I buy a new unit, or can I legally tape it up, the car is black so black gaffer tape will conceal it, I know that it will fall apart if I try to remove it.

How long have you got to do a proper job? Unless your MOT is at 5pm today, I would use some clear epoxy resin. I used Evo Stik Epoxy Control. It's about 5 quid from B&Q and is my go-to for all important epoxy jobs. Anything else gets the cheap rubbish from eBay. It's translucent, so done right, it will be borderline invisible, very strong and any blocking of light will be insignificant. It's a slow setter though. 2 hours after a 50/50 mixture, it is still very much a liquid. You can obviously add more hardener to speed up the setting process, but then it becomes a bit of a gamble, and the two reacting compounds are what ensure a good bond and strength. After 12 hours, it's like a putty and that's when it can be very useful for layering up for example (recently did some on the cowel for my A4). As a putty, the more you move it, the more it begins to lose it's translucence, which is why I would suggest doing it as a liquid and just giving it time.

Don't forget, tape will just let water rain in. The seal around the 3rd brake light isn't the best imo.

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Did 50% of it work? It's less than 50% for a fail.

Am I right in thinking you can also pass with no 3rd brake at all, or have MOT regulations tightened up?

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18 hours ago, Skezza said:

How long have you got to do a proper job? Unless your MOT is at 5pm today, I would use some clear epoxy resin. I used Evo Stik Epoxy Control. It's about 5 quid from B&Q and is my go-to for all important epoxy jobs. Anything else gets the cheap rubbish from eBay. It's translucent, so done right, it will be borderline invisible, very strong and any blocking of light will be insignificant. It's a slow setter though. 2 hours after a 50/50 mixture, it is still very much a liquid. You can obviously add more hardener to speed up the setting process, but then it becomes a bit of a gamble, and the two reacting compounds are what ensure a good bond and strength. After 12 hours, it's like a putty and that's when it can be very useful for layering up for example (recently did some on the cowel for my A4). As a putty, the more you move it, the more it begins to lose it's translucence, which is why I would suggest doing it as a liquid and just giving it time.

Don't forget, tape will just let water rain in. The seal around the 3rd brake light isn't the best imo.

Could you really be bothered though? Doubt you'd get charged more than £10-20 for one of a breaker. 12 minutes as opposed to 12 hours of a job. 

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On 2/1/2019 at 10:28 AM, cj1 said:

Could you really be bothered though? Doubt you'd get charged more than £10-20 for one of a breaker. 12 minutes as opposed to 12 hours of a job. 

That's a perfectly legitimate suggestion. Entirely up to you. The job itself obviously doesn't require 12 hours of effort.... More like 10 minutes so it's however you value your time. I had no MOT to pass so drove around for one day with no third light while I completed the job. The whole process took 24 hours but the amount of work is less than 20 minutes.Q

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I’m dreading something going wrong with mine - the PO got the Lupo resrayed, along with other poor skills they did not take the spoiler off, a lot of pita & it’s now blended into the hatch. If something goes wrong with the light, I’m not sure how I’m going to split without screwing the paint

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1 hour ago, LR5V said:

I’m dreading something going wrong with mine - the PO got the Lupo resrayed, along with other poor skills they did not take the spoiler off, a lot of pita & it’s now blended into the hatch. If something goes wrong with the light, I’m not sure how I’m going to split without screwing the paint

That's not good at all...

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