fog lights

[tstouffer]

i have two questions about my foglights
1. so i had hids in my foglights and one day both of my foglights stopped working. i tried putting regular halogen bulbs back in but they still didnt work, is there a fuse that might have blown if so does anyone know which fuse it is?
2. the inside of my foglights got mud in them and i was wondering how to get them apart so i can clean out the inside of them. thanks!

 

[Thermo]

tstouffer, first off, check fuse #9 in the engine bay fuse box. That is the one that powers the fog lights. Please keep in mind that you are more than likely "hurting" the fuse each time you turn on the fog lights with the HIDs installed. Why do I say that? Simple, each of the HID bulbs pulls about 20 amps (so, 40 amps initially) when you turn them on to get the bulb glowing (requires a 23,000 volt surge to get the initial plasma ball going). After the first 2-3 seconds, the voltage drops back down to the normal 85V and the current drops down to about 2.5-3 amps for each bulb (6 amps total). This initial spike causes the fuse to overheat and start to wear the metal away of the fuse. Over time, this wearing away leads to it is failure. You can probably step up to a 20 amp fuse, but I wouldn't go much higher as the wiring between the fuse box and the fog lights is not intended for long term currents above 15 amps. So, going bigger could worst case lead to BBQ'ed Ford. Not a pretty sight.

As for cleaning the fog lights, I would get in behind the bumper, unbolt the fog lights from the bumper and then remove the bulb from the housing and simply spray water inside the housing to flush everything out. Worst case, get your hands on a 12" long stick and some rags to push inside the housing. Then you can use the stick to move the rags around to do some serious rubbing. From there, you can let the housings air dry or put them inside the oven at about 150F to help air the insides.

 

[tstouffer]

awesome thankyou so much ill check that fuse today and let you know

 

[tstouffer]

yup it was fuse 9 thanks!