delete me

 

If you can get the broken parts out I would think 3 out of 4 will be ok...

 

The chances of you getting three out of four out steel screws out of brass inserts held in by plastic are slim at best.

Soak them with some BG Inforce if you can find it, it is the best on the market and let it sit for a couple of weeks, spray it every day and tap them with a small hammer lightly.

You can not use heat or much force.

My guess is you have new lamp assembly in your future.

 

I had this exact situation with mine a few years ago.

What I can't remeber is exactly how I removed the brass inserts and broken bolts from the plastic housing - either I pressed them out to the rear or drilled through the remains of the bolt causing the drill to stick, spin the brass insert and melt it's way out of the rear.

Once I had a hole all the way through, I JB welded M4 or M5 (can't recallwhich) Stainless steel nuts into the recess at the rear of the housing and refixed the lense using alllen head stainless bolts. Only gotcha with this was ensuring the threads in the nuts didn't get KJB Weld in them - solution is to use the new fixing bolt greased with vaseline as a puller to draw the nut and JB Weld into the recess on the back of the plastic housing so you are guaranteed that all lines up and the vaselin stops the JB sticking to the threads.

PS I had 7 out of 8 original bolts that broke rather than unscrewing.

 

If all the stuff you want to keep is brass or plastic, you can soak the whole part in alum until the steel is eaten away... about two days.

 

I have a good used back piece I could sell you.

 

Top marks to Jon in Oz for a typical example of Antipodean resourcefulness.
Instead of waiting for the right part Aussies are renowned for repairing,
adapting and just generally "bodging" their way around a problem.
By using stainless nuts and screws his repaired part is probably better
than the original.

 

Thanks for the compliment Brian. Unfortunately I'm English. Learnt my bodging as an impoverished student owning a succesion of BL junk.

The ozzies are learning this kinda stuff late in life. In this hemisphere, the kiwis learnt it 1st being poorer and having a climate that breaks cars quicker.

 

Great fix Jon!

Though in Oz I know you to be British with a penchant for the Southern Hemisphere. Must be all that fascination with watching things spin counter clockwise. I lived in Kiwi Land for a bit and I agree the clime there and the people are hard on their cars. I feel as a sailboat owner then and now the resourcefulness of those who spend time on the ocean generally learn how to fix just about anything..... and sometimes in ways better than original.

I also owned a 1969 TR6 as my daily driver when young, dumb, poor and happy. Was worse than any boat I owned in regards to learning how to 'fix' things not quite right from the factory.

Great repair and cheers!

Dan

 

Those lens bolts are a pain as they are a bad choice of material to cope with all the moisture they are exposed to there, with inevitable corrosion unless they have been protected with grease.

I sometimes see the used front lens units advertised on eBay, and almost invariably the seller describes a couple of the screw holders as broken!

The bolts seize and the heads rust, so easy to damage them if you first try to turn them out.

For future reference what I find works well is to squirt them with something like PBlaster first, then hit them with hand impact driver with suitable Philips bit. The impact will break the corrosion and start to turn them out before the head is damaged.

Only drawback is the concussion from impact driver dislodged filaments of both of the H3 foglights, but replacing these is a lot cheaper than new lens units or the complete assembly! I was removing the old lights as I picked up a brand new pair at very reasonable price. By preserving the screw holders of the old lights I recouped a good chunk of cost by selling them on as undamaged units.

Old and new lights shown below for RHS.

 

When you say "hand impact driver", what kind of tool do you mean? I have a number of impact drivers but they're all rather large, agricultural devices that I wouldn't trust near my fog lamps

Thanks

Nick

 

It's about size of a relay baton if you can imagine that. Very handy tool for any bolts/screws which can seize with corrosion. I bought it originally for the little countersunk bolts which on the brake disks.

Mine is not this model, but similar.

 

Yep, that's the beast. You're very brave using that on the little delicate stuff. IME the springs in them are so strong that a good whack is required to get any torsion, and I'd be worried that the bit would slip and I'd be looking at a pile of glass on the floor...

Mine are in blue boxes. IIRC the make is "Talex" or something like that.

Nick

 

I don't see why you guys are so keen on a solution that will melt or maybe break the plastic. Dissolving the steel pieces would be much safer, although not as quick.

http://www.ehow.com/how_4999647_diss...drill-bit.html