Ok guys, almost done with my Retrofits. I have the driverside all done besides painting the shrouds

But because of these cheap Ebay chinese crap lights I've had one big issue. When I bought them I noticed the passenger side had one broken bolt on the clear lense that holds the headlight chrome piece to the lense. Since I had already taken them apart when I found that out I couldn't return them

So here is my dilema. I went to undo the other one and it was like it was welded in there. (Driverside came out just fine just like stock headlights do). The screw broke off about 1/2 way out. I was loosening it and it just stayed in there. The head broke off.

So I now have two broken screws in plastic holes. I don't really know what I can do now. I'm thinking about silconing them in or epoxying them.....dunno?

Ideas?

 

What is that, the lens?

I don't know about the 11 gens too much, wait for one of the other guys to chime in but if that is what I think it is, I'd just silicone it back in place via the edge and disregard those.

 

Yeah it's the lense here are some better shots from the How To Paint Your Headlights thread

These are the screw holes that are now clogged


It holds the shell on to the lense

 

i would place it in there then lay down some high temp epoxy anyway you can to hold the shell to the lens. it shouldn't take a whole lot to keep it in place since all it does is set there but i could be wrong..

 

That's my last resort, but sounds like that is what I need to do.

 

Take a drill bit that is the same size as the bolt and drill it out. If the clear plastic lens is threaded, figure out the thread size based upon the old bolt, and if you can re-tap the hole in the lens. If it is just a sheet metal screw (very coarse threads) then drill out the old bolt/screw and get the next size up. If you lived in SW PA, I'd definitely help you out since I work in a hardware store. If you don't feel like doing that, get some Gorilla Glue.

 

The problem is the fact that it's almost impossible to get a grab on the screw, the drill bit just keeps walking

I tried getting a center punch and geting some bite to it but that was tough too because it felt like the shock of the punch was gonna break the plastic

 

Try starting out with a much smaller drill bit.

 

Can you cut a slot in it with a dremel and back it out with a flathead screwdriver?

 

I'll try it again but that's what I did the first go around

Possibly, but the shaft is slightly recessed from the top of the plastic...it's frustrating as hell!

 

Epoxy it to the lens and then make sure it seals up well when you put it on the bucket. As long as moisture can't get in you're good. I can't speak to the specific screws because i didn't separate the chrome from the lens.

 

Well tried every which way to extract the screws. No dice. So I went and got some loctite "plastic" epoxy. It turned out great, the epoxy sank into the screw holes and attached to the lense very well. Hopefully it'll hold though.