2 questions about the trunk

[pj]

Hello everyone,
I cleaned out my trunk this past weekend and took some pictures. One picture has a yellow arrow pointing at a dish-shaped black object that is oriented vertically in the right side back corner of the trunk. What is this thing?

The other picture shows the inside/back of the tail lamp housing on the left side. It was a sunny day when I took the picture and you can see the lens brightly lit from the outside. Should there be a little rectangular cover over this opening? There is on the other side.

Thanks as always.

[kampala]

for one of your questions --- shots pulled from this site:

[49er]

The opening in the tail light enclosure should have a clear plastic lens and is an additional trunk light.

John

[pj]

Ah, ha! Thanks, guys. A good start to my day -- I've learned something new already.

So the round object is a resting place for the base of the jack. I had lifted the jack out just to clean the trunk, but I'm not sure I had the jack in the right place anyhow, so your answer is very helpful.

As for the clear lens, that's even more interesting. How clever to light the trunk this way! I presume it was only on the one side. Is that correct, John? And now the important follow-up question: can the small lens be replaced? If not, do new tail light lamp housing units that are sold include this item? I'll try to look that up. . . The only ones I can find in the online catalogs that show an image clearly enough are on the SLS website, and indeed it's quite obvious that the clear small lens is there. But the website only shows one side clearly enough.

[mdsalemi]

As for the clear lens...can the small lens be replaced? If not, do new tail light lamp housing units that are sold include this item?

Peter, I have an older assembly with a cracked and broken lens. It's the correct one for the image shown. I examined it closely and cannot figure out how it was attached! It is a rigid plastic, like a polystyrene. (n.b. had it been a polycarbonate it probably wouldn't be broken, and yours would still be in place) It seems to be molded around the sheet metal that makes up this bulb holder. It seems to be flanged on both sides; any effort to push it out would break the flanges or the lens.

What I would suggest is to look for some flat polycarbonate; you can probably find this at a hobby store or similar. Carefully cut a rectangle of this to size, and mount it inside the bulb housing with clear silicone. Of course if your bulb holder needs replacement, then that'll work too.

[49er]

Lens is there on both left and right sides although the spare blocks most of the light which is pretty dim anyway:-)
Sorry for the blurry photo.

John

[wwheeler]

I have bought the SLS bulb holder for my W111. Believe it or not, the holder is the same as the W113. Yes, it does have the clear lens included with the holder assembly. They do a nice job on these pieces. I replaced mine because one of my light sockets was broken. Also comes with the gasket around the edge of the holder.

[scoot]

I find this design of trunk lights to be lame.  For one thing, it requires you to have the car lights on to see the trunk light, which is silly.  I would like to retrofit some sort of better trunk light (in all my cars) that provides decent light based on a trunk switch and maybe some hidden LEDs...  Always on when trunk is open independent of light switch or key in ignition.