Request: Info about UK rear fog light and lamp housing
 

Howdy all,

I'll be replacing the actuator boot in the 01 and while I have the trim off the trunk lid I noticed that US cars have a provision for the RHD fog lamp. The cavity is closed, but has clear slots for easily cutting or punching through the cap. For US cars, the rear fog light is on the left (drivers side). If I'm not mistaking, for UK cars the rear fog is on the RIGHT (UK drivers side) correct?

With that said, I'd like to add the right side foglamp bulb on both of mine and have a dual fog light system. It seems so easy....knock out the plug in the housing, get a bulb socket and bulb, splice and run wires across the lid to the other foglamp, and voila! That's where I stumbled upon my question. I'm told the UK fog lamp may also have a reflective coating on the RIGHT (inside the fog light bulb cavity), where as the US right-side lamp does not.

So, could one of you fine folks in the UK check your lamps to try and determine if there is a reflective coating? Or perhaps someone has pictures of a lamp housing that was damaged or cracked opened up for one reason or another? I'm trying to figure out if, in order to successfully do this, I will also need to buy a UK-spec lamp.

Many thanks!

Many thanks!

Fog lights do have a reflector (or reflective material) on the inside of the housing.

2 possible solutions -

1.. Purchase UK RHD foglamp housing from our forum sponsors. Hopefully this will come with a bulb, lampholder and some wiring to tap in to. This gives you a proper fog lamp. (as long as you can stomach the shipping cost, duties etc on entry to the US)

2.. Split the existing lamp and fabricate a fog lamp of sorts. I used to do this in my days of importing cars directly from Japan where they have no fog lamps at all. The easiest solution was to apply spray glue to the inside of the housing and apply tin foil (shiny side out) to the housing and fit a 21W bulb. Reassemble housing with a hot melt glue gun to ensure it was sealed against water ingress and refit. It wasn't perfect but every one passed the MOT (annual vehicle test) here in the UK and looked better than a $5 aftermarket lamp bolted to the rear fender.


Hope this helps

I've fitted a second foglamp om my UK D2, it's very easy, apart from the reflector!
Everything was there including the wiring, I just bought a bulbholder from our sponsors, unwrapped the connector, fitted a bulb and plugged it in.
I vaguely recall that there might have been a blanking plate to punch out but that was dead easy.

Except...… there's no reflective material on the plastic and no obvious way to take the unit apart easily. So at first it looked relatively dim.
In the end I bought some adhesive metallic tape, cut off little tapered strips of it, fed them through the mounting hole and pressed them into place with my fingers and various tools.
It worked well enough that the two fog lights now appear near enough the same intensity. Occasionally an MOT tester has commented on them but not enough to flag it up, mainly just the observation that there are two.

So, UK-spec cars have a reflector on the single standard (right) side foglamp, but not the left.
But all the wiring is there for both, at least it was on my 1998 PF and subsequent 2002 FL....

So you used plain ol' kitchen foil?

You are right, the blanking plate just has to be punched or cut out. There are two or three small spots where it's actually attached, so it's easy to open up that cavity.

I didn't know the wiring was tucked away. I'll have to check.

It could be that the wiring is just extended for right-hand-drive cars as they're probably a minority, so indeed best to check.

On the other hand it shows some weird/significant attention to detail (cost-cutting?) to leave out reflecting material on one side.... :Confused:

Incidentally I just checked the wiring was "live" by unplugging the fog light holder and plugging it into the other sides corresponding connector, before ordering anything.

Remember he's not talking about a D2, but "the old days" of adding fog lights to Japanese imports....
That said, the material I used was effectively kitchen foil reflectivity on an adhesive backing; just commonly-available aluminium adhesive tape.

I'll update later regrading the wiring. I'll have to check both of mine.

I did want to thank you both for the info. It confirms that I need to take an extra step to get this to work the right way. I'm assesing how to proceed. I'm thinking I may try to modify one car and buy a UK lamp assembly for the other, then compare.

FYI. In my research, I found the following VAG part numbers. I'm missing the PN for the correct oem VAG "repair wire" to use that will fit the connector and the terminals to the bulb socket. Whenever I find it, I'll post that, too.

Fog lamp bulb socket: 893945265
Connector to lamp socket: 443971996

I did the same some years ago on my FE D2. No parts required other than the build holder form our sponsors. And a bit of aluminium (aluminum would probably do just as well :) ) tape.

Pretty sure I have a spare assembly if you want to test, it's in the garage as I recently replaced mine due to cracks in the reversing light letting water in.

Not sure what the postage would be but the light unit is free to a good home.

Sending you a PM, Pete.