When I took the 1985 in for state inspection last month, I noticed that the passenger side backup light next to the license plate had burned out. Who knows for how long—except for the inspection test drive, I'm the only one who drives the car: and, of course, you can't see that the light is out until somebody puts the car into reverse ...

We're showing Lauren next Sunday (we try to show her once a year) at Corvettes for Chip at Thomas Chevrolet in Media, PA. So, after watching enjoyable NASCAR (Carl got a little pushy at the end) and Indy Car (Graham drove amazingly well considering he was missing big pieces of his car) races this afternoon, I pulled the car our of the garage. Ivelis verified for me that I was remembering correctly that the passenger side backup light was the one that was out.

I opened the hood, disconnected the negative battery terminal, and dropped the small wrench I was using down into the depths below the battery. Luckily, I dropped it so far that I was able to reach from under the body and knock it out. Save!

I removed the license plate and took a look at the situation. The backup lights are attached in much the same way that the side marker lights are. Understanding that particular interface helped me disconnect the bulb from its fairing. The light had obviously blown—the glass was no longer translucent. When I tried to remove it, I encountered problem #2; the bulb itself (likely original to the car) was so weak that it had almost completely separated from its bayonet cap.

Ivelis had joined me, and she gets credit for suggesting that I cut off what remained of the tenuous connection between the bulb and the cap with scissors, so I could get a better angle on the bayonet cap. Once I did that, about two minutes of time with some needle-nose pliers got the cap out.

At this point, Ivelis announced that she was going to have some champagne in honor of our anticipated success—and there would be some coming for me after I was done. I sprayed a lot of contact cleaner into the bulb housing and dried it. Next, I grabbed my “bulb kit,” dating from back when I realized that a non-functional light could just kill you in NCRS judging. I had not one but two of the appropriate bulbs inside, so I pulled them out, visually inspected them, and picked a likely one.

I applied some bulb grease and put the bulb in the socket. Connect the battery, start the car, put it in reverse—no joy. Disconnect the battery, rotate the bulb 180 degrees, connect the battery, start the car, put it in reverse; still no joy. The question was now whether we had only a bulb problem or a bulb problem and a housing problem.

I disconnected the battery, grabbed the other bulb, connected the battery, started the car, put it in reverse; Ivelis gave me the thumbs up. So, put the housing back into the fairing and check again—still good.

With that part of the back of the car opened up, it’s a chance to clean—so I did so, first with some Simple Green and then with some spray-on car wash from Griot’s Garage. Next, re-attach the license plate, making sure all the screw slots are horizontally aligned.

I drove Lauren into the garage and hooked her up to the battery tender. She’ll get some light prep on Saturday and we’ll see how she does on Sunday.