Broke the interior light legs removing it

[DMC-Ron]

I was replacing the interior lights with LED bulbs from DMC and inadvertently broke the retaining legs while removing the light. Always discouraging when something like this happens on what should be a simple procedure. I came up with a fairly simple fix, still, it took a lot longer than if I had not broken the light's housing legs. So I thought I would share where I went wrong in hopes that others wouldn’t repeat my error. I’ll also share the fix in case you do.

First of all since my car is an 83 the interior lights are a little different than some other pictures I’ve seen posted. My lights have the fragile legs only on one end (I’ve included a picture of the one I didn’t break). Here’s where I went wrong. I did the front interior first. Sitting in the seat facing the front of the car I pushed the light to the left and tried to pull the right edge down. That’s when I heard a snap sound. I had just broken the somewhat fragile legs that were on the right side. Had I pushed the light to the right, pulled down the left edge, then eased the light further to the left and down, it would have popped out without breaking the legs. By the way, these legs are necessary, they engage the upper side of the headliner. Without the legs the light droops down on the right. My fix was to use some thin aluminum as a clip. A small stainless bolt holds the clip in place. I included a couple of photos of the fix should you suffer the same fate. This is probably a newbie mistake but I thought I would share.

Removal of the rear went fine. As you face the rear of the car push the light to the left, then ease down the right side. Move the light down and to the right as you remove it from the liner. This protects the retainer legs on the left side. At least on my car that was the case.

Bottom line: In my car, the fragile legs for both front and rear interior lights are on the passenger side. Pull down on the driver's side.

Ron

PS - How do you insert photos in the message so that you can associate text comments with them?

[Ron]

To insert a pic:
PostPic.jpg

It will then prompt you, as it did with the attachments you made.

After insertion, you can double-click the image to change its size, etc....

[Lwanmtr]

Thats a pretty clever way to fix it. I have to figure something out for my front light also

[DMC-Ron]

To insert a pic:
PostPic.jpg

It will then prompt you, as it did with the attachments you made.

After insertion, you can double-click the image to change its size, etc....

Thanks, Ron