Hi,
The rear tail light bodies have become stuck to the car body as the rubber gasket is 54 years old.
Any suggestions how I car safely remove the lamp body with out damage to lamp or car body.
I have tried to wedge a screw driver blade between lamp and car but it rock solid. A gentle tap with a rubber hammer did not work.
Regards,
David B Australia.

 

No matter how hard the rubber is it sounds like you have not removed the inner nut--If you only took out the one large screw it will not move. If you have it all loose it will come off.

 

Exactly right!

 

Hi to George Camp and sov 211,
Thank you both for the quick replies.
Yes I did remove the screw under the lens and also the nut with in he boot. As far as I can see there are only these two retainers holding the tail light body to the car.
So I still can't shift the tail light off the car, any other thoughts?
David B.

 

use a thin knife or a .010 gauge guitar string, or thin fishing wire, to slice through between the gasket and the body. You will then hit any obstruction which will tell you what or where it is being held.

 

Domain if you have removed those then I do not understand why you cant pry it off. While I have not measured it the total surface area of the light to the gasket/grommet meus be well short of a square inch. Not sure how strong you are but it should come off with a bump on one side. The lamp housing is almost a lever itself.

 

It's quite possible that someone used contact cement somewhere along the way, or some other glue.
I like Jose's fishing line thing, I would be apprehensive using a "metal" guitar string.

 

jeff you would be surprised what great tool guitar strings are. I use them in a seesaw manner to separate anything that is either glued or double taped. The best ones are .010 gauge. It's one of those "when everything else fails" tools. By the way, is it "gauge" or "gage" ?

 

Ok so while one is sawing through what ever there will be electrical leads that have to be worked around!

 

yes that's why I said "obstructions". You need to do it carefully.

 

I have to say I am struggling to find the problem as such, if you look at the image, unless someone has used another form of mechanical fixing, glue of any sort would struggle to hold the rear light that hard.

I found that someone had used a couple of self tapping screws in addition to the factory fixings to hold some in place before.

So check for ANY other fixing other than the factory nut and screw from the front under the lens, look under the rear arch to see if you can see another fixing (such as the end of a self tapping screw) before trying to force the light off or cut anything at this point.

There is very little contact surface on the lamp body itself, so unless someone has added something else glue just would not hold it, nor would a hardened gasket

 

+1

 

I have managed to remove the tail light bodies off the car. They needed a very smart couple of wacks with a rubber mallet, once loose I was able to remove the bodies analog with the wiring for the bulbs. The very time consuming part of the job was removing the old rubber gaskets which had vulcanized them selves to the car body after 54 years in place and in the hot Australian climate.
The replacement gaskets I purchased from D Manners in the UK were not the best fit and needed some reworking of the mounting holes to get a good fit but the job is done.
David B.