Near Intersection of I-35 & I-90 Southern Mn. | I noticed one of the beltline lamps on the old 8310 was half full of water. I removed the bulb assembly from the back. It is one of those quarter turn types with a 90 degree metri-pak connector on it. The bulb was bad as I could see part of the filament rolling around inside.
I removed the lamp assembly and poured the water out the back. It dried out but I could see that the internal reflector and glass was dirty due to the dirty water. Although it would probably have worked, I used a good sized screwdriver and pried the front cover off. I was able to clean the glass and reflector fairly well and reinserted the glass cover after laying a bead of Permatex gasket maker around the seam. This was how it was assembled originally. I suspect that water had gotten into the lamp through a gap in the gasket.
I got a new bulb from Deere for some $14 and reassembled the unit. It seems to work fine. I decided to check the rest of the lights (should have done that the other day but it was raining and the tractor was outside). Lo and behold the beltline bulb on the other side was bad also but no evidence of water this time. I cussed myself for not getting two bulbs instead of one the other day.
I noticed the part number on the defective bulbs was GE 888. I did an online search for this bulb and found a large range of replacements and prices. The prices ranged from a low of around $3 to a high of around $32. The highest price was at Wal-Mart. This leads me to believe there must be a large range in quality and/or markup in these bulbs. Since these are belt line auxiliary lights, they are not as critical as if they were headlights on a road vehicle so I'm tempted to save a buck. On the other hand, I've never replaced the bulbs before on this fairly old tractor so if higher price equals better quality and longer life, it might be worth it.
I'm getting the impression that these bulbs are used in many places from daytime running lights to headlights. There were variants some of which were listed as Halogen and others as LED. The regular filament ones that had a specification seemed to list 400 hours. |
GE 888 bulbs
