What makes headlights smoke/turn milky?

[bobs409]

I'm ticked! I scored a set of 4 working T-3 headlights yesterday from a '65 Olds 98 but when I put power to them, 3 of them smoked on the insides and got the inside of the glass all white! :cuss (guess I should feel lucky that the 4th did not) I left one lit for a few minutes to see if it would burn out but it didn't. It did keep smoking though.

Just for conversation purposes (because I can't think of anyway to actually fix the problem), does anyone know why this happens? I've had many of these and most times, that does not happen. Seems odd that 3 out of these 4 did. :dunno

I only paid $1 a piece but of course, lost out on $25 plus dollars I could have made on them. :mad:

[jim_ss409]

I'm not sure, but I think that's caused by air getting into the bulb, either through a crack or maybe a bad seal at the plug in terminals. Newer halogen style headlights will continue to work when cracked because they have an inner bulb that protects the fillament.

[fatride]

Bob, the bulb loses it's vacuum seal due to corrosion.

[bobs409]

Thanks guys, that sounds feasible. 3 bad out of 4 is just my bad luck showing. :cuss

I am going to take a test wire with me from now on and test all lights/horns I find before I buy. Up until now, I just took a chance on them as I can buy either for $1 each but what the heck, a buck is a buck... :D

I have a set of 4 on ebay now that is up to $52 buckeroo's. :brow

[rstreet]

Bob when you run your test wire make sure you have a "good" battery hooked up with alot of cca's to make sure the filament heats up and "smokes" IF OXYGEN has gotten in.