License plate light screws

E

E_S

New Member
A previous owner have managed to snap one screw on each license plate light (what a stupid idea not using stainless!), so the lenses are partly loose. No rust or damage yet, though. Has anyone had luck drilling out the broken screws, or should I just bite it and get new license plate lights? I see replacing them is sort of a PITA..
 
light replacements I've done on 2 A2s. Both involve complete dismantlement of the tailgate trims from the inside first, then wrestling the rusted screws out of the external trim, then removal of the external trim. Oh - and if you are both lucky and organised, find a suitable online source of the said light fittings for less than you can sell your child's kidney for on Ebay. And order them and get them delivered. Then you have to stick the broken-off-bits of the fixings back onto the external trim as well as fitting the new numberplate light mountings into the trim, then refit the trim, then connect the electrical bits inside the tailgate and finally the internal trim again and hope it has all gone together. Which it may not have done for various reasons not excluding lack of availability of parts that were available until 3 years ago and so on.
 
E_S said:
A previous owner have managed to snap one screw on each license plate light (what a stupid idea not using stainless!), so the lenses are partly loose. No rust or damage yet, though. Has anyone had luck drilling out the broken screws, or should I just bite it and get new license plate lights? I see replacing them is sort of a PITA..
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Please forgive the overt pessimism in my above response. Rear license-plate light replacements are one of those jobs that we all have to do now our cars are averaging 20 years old. The key issue is getting hold of new ones to replace them, and then the job is a bit of a pig, but mostly revolves around the tenacious nature of the really robust trim retention clips that you need to overcome to get the tailgate inner trim off.

If you need more help, please come back. Best of luck. Robin
 
I was ‘lucky’ to an extent in that the lenses had been damaged by the rusty screws and disintegrated. This left enough of the screw head sitting proud so was able to twist out having soaked with wd40. Was able to get complete replacements from Car Parts 4 Less and replaced the supplied screws with stainless steel. So I ended up just changing the screws and lenses, a lucky escape

Post in thread 'Today I.....'
https://www.a2oc.net/community/index.php?threads/today-i.28729/post-491566
 
Just yesterday I tackled this very job, as with you 2 rusty screws came out using a carefully sized pozidrive but the other 2 sheared.
Fortunately, there was a small stub of each broken screw protruding, so rather than drill them out ( steel in plastic 🥴 ) I heated them up using a 60 watt soldering iron with a blob of solder to transmit the heat, this softened the plastic, then using needle-nosed pliers they easily unscrewed. Robert.
 
E_S said:
A previous owner have managed to snap one screw on each license plate light (what a stupid idea not using stainless!), so the lenses are partly loose. No rust or damage yet, though. Has anyone had luck drilling out the broken screws, or should I just bite it and get new license plate lights? I see replacing them is sort of a PITA..
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Good Evening,

The big question for me is can you unscrew the remaining screw in each lense? If so with the remaining screw removed the lense can be temporarily removed/moved aside allowing you to attack the rusted stumps of the sheared screws. If the remaining screws also shear that is not ideal but at least the lense will be free, just more rusted stumps to deal with.

For me one pair of screws unscrewed but the other pair sheared. To remove the stumps I drilled something like four or five 3mm holes round it to loosen and unscrewed with some hefty pin nosed pliers. The trick is not to drill too deep, say 10mm, as the original screws are were quite short and you are only trying to loosen the stumps. There is enough 'meat' left to take a longer screw, in fact my longer screws as it transpired went all the way through into the tailgate void, does no harm and nobody sees them. If the longer screws fail to grip you can always use a stainless nut and countersunk bolt but you will have to remove the lower tailgate trim to put on a washer and the nut but removing and replacing the trim can be a little mission in itself.

Having said that that's what I did but I like the idea of heating the stump with a soldering iron.

You do not want to replace the light unless you really have to, as per Robin above.

Andy
 
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Robert97R said:
Just yesterday I tackled this very job, as with you 2 rusty screws came out using a carefully sized pozidrive but the other 2 sheared.
Fortunately, there was a small stub of each broken screw protruding, so rather than drill them out ( steel in plastic 🥴 ) I heated them up using a 60 watt soldering iron with a blob of solder to transmit the heat, this softened the plastic, then using needle-nosed pliers they easily unscrewed. Robert.
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A great tip Robert ... I'll give this a try if I run into difficulties 👍👍👍👍👍
 
Robin_Cox said:
Please forgive the overt pessimism in my above response. Rear license-plate light replacements are one of those jobs that we all have to do now our cars are averaging 20 years old. The key issue is getting hold of new ones to replace them, and then the job is a bit of a pig, but mostly revolves around the tenacious nature of the really robust trim retention clips that you need to overcome to get the tailgate inner trim off.

If you need more help, please come back. Best of luck. Robin
Click to expand...
Hello Robin,

what is the size of a stainless steel screw required?

Thank you!

Andrei
 
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