So with my exhaust project on hold, I thought I'd put the time I had my wife's bus in the shop to good use. One day last winter, I was following her home and noticed the left tail light wasn't as bright as the right one. Thinking the bulb was not making a good connection, I took the lens off and checked the bulb socket and contacts. They looked fine, but I noticed that the bulb holder was pretty filthy. After a Simple Green bath, I also found that the left bulb holder had suffered a nice misting of red paint from when the bus was painted under a previous owner's regime. It took all of two minutes to completely remove the bulb holders from the bus so I can understand why the painter couldn't spare the time to do the job right.
You can kinda see here.
This is probably the cause of the uneven illumination. So I got them all dressed up.
... and used this on 'em.
The result.
Re-installed with new seals from Wolfsburg West (very nice quality BTW).
You can't tell from the photos, but at least both sides should now be the same relative brightness.
