LMC Heavy Duty Headlight Harness Water in Relay

[Rich72C10]

About a year ago I got LMC's Heavy Duty Headlight Harness, part number 36-3580 but installed it some months after receiving it. So it is less than a year I think in my truck. I likely have under 5 hours of driving time at night.

After one of my truck washes, my lights started to flicker. Then over the weekend my High Beams actually turned off my lights. I reached out to LMC stating I thought I had some bad relays, which they just reported back to me "we sell replacements". Gee, thanks but I knew that - so they don't seem to care about standing behind the stuff they sell.

Anyways, I ordered two relays but while waiting for them to get here I decided to open up the problem relay. Which was rather easy as the cover isn't really sealed onto the base. As you can see with the photos, water has gotten into the relay and made a mess of things. Do note, the only water that gets on my truck is when I wash it and it stays in my garage. So never has rain (other some very light rain) hit my truck since installing this harness.

I got the relay working again but it took me using my Relay File (what I used to clean contacts on a EM Pinball machines). When cleaning relay contacts you shouldn't just use a normal file. Well you can but then you'll damage the relay contact pads and that can cause arcing that leads to the relay decay (but so does water).

Anyways, perhaps this will help someone else.