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I dropped the little parking light bulb into the headlight
So I notice the parking light on passenger side is not working. Should be easy to fix right? Well, my kid is in bed so no distraction, and I got nothing to do so I went to the garage. I located the bulb, pulled the old one out no problem. Apparently when I put the new one in, I did not put it all the way in. So I was trying to plug the connector back into the headlight, and heard something dropped. S*** the bulb is detached from the connector and now is in the headlight!! Argh...
I fiddle around for a bit trying to figure out how to fish that bulb from the headlight, but no luck. I think I need to remove the headlight from the car to make it easier to get that bulb out.
Moral of the story, do not try to fix your car in the middle of the night, especially when you are tired from working all day. I am going to look at it again in the AM with fresh eyes.
Had a similar experience. I used a length of strong fishing line with a VERY sticky ball of gel-like substance on the end. You can try sticky chewing gum, etc. If you can get the string to dangle without having to go around corners, etc, it might work. A friend got a screw out of an assembly by using, of all things, a suction nozzle. If the bulb has any metal on it, you might be lucky with a magnet on a line. Hard to picture what might work since I can't visualize the headlight assembly. good luck with this.
The Headlight assy. will come out without removing the bumper, but it's a little finicky. I like the suggestion of using a wire coat hanger, with gum on the end, or fishing a small magnet on a string down in there.
Just tip the car up on its back bumper and shake it out
LMAO - almost sprayed my coffee all over my keyboard. You almost cost me more money!
- Can not use magnet - it is a bulb, so glass no metal.
- I thought about using bubble gum or something sticky at the end of a stick or something. It will be my luck that the bubble gum got detached from the stick, and attached itself into the inside of the headlight, so I am not going to do this.
- I have a similar little grabber - it can not fit into the opening
So I notice the parking light on passenger side is not working. Should be easy to fix right? Well, my kid is in bed so no distraction, and I got nothing to do so I went to the garage. I located the bulb, pulled the old one out no problem. Apparently when I put the new one in, I did not put it all the way in. So I was trying to plug the connector back into the headlight, and heard something dropped. S*** the bulb is detached from the connector and now is in the headlight!! Argh...
I fiddle around for a bit trying to figure out how to fish that bulb from the headlight, but no luck. I think I need to remove the headlight from the car to make it easier to get that bulb out.
Moral of the story, do not try to fix your car in the middle of the night, especially when you are tired from working all day. I am going to look at it again in the AM with fresh eyes.
Sorry man that is a pain. To verify for you yes there are three bolts that hold the headlight to the vehicle for 04-06 model. There is one at the top of the light visible from the top. One to the inside of the light visible once you remove the black plastic trim cover that has the HID warning label on it and lastly the hard one is behind the bumper on the side of the light. These are all 10mm. If you remove the hardware holding your wheel well liner and then loosen the three bolts that hold your bumper you could then slide your bumper forward providing access to the side bolt. I am not sure how you would get it out any other way since its small and hard to get into the headlight assembly when the lights are on the car.
For the wheel liner all the bolts to remove are 10mm or a stubby philips screwdriver and the two side clips twist and then remove with a flat blade screwdriver and the 3 bolts that hold the side bumper are 10mm. Hope this helps some.
So I notice the parking light on passenger side is not working. Should be easy to fix right? Well, my kid is in bed so no distraction, and I got nothing to do so I went to the garage. I located the bulb, pulled the old one out no problem. Apparently when I put the new one in, I did not put it all the way in. So I was trying to plug the connector back into the headlight, and heard something dropped. S*** the bulb is detached from the connector and now is in the headlight!! Argh...
I fiddle around for a bit trying to figure out how to fish that bulb from the headlight, but no luck. I think I need to remove the headlight from the car to make it easier to get that bulb out.
Moral of the story, do not try to fix your car in the middle of the night, especially when you are tired from working all day. I am going to look at it again in the AM with fresh eyes.
I suggest remove the high beam bulb that will give you much easy access to get the bulb out, you can try a cloth hanger with masking tape wrapped, then do a reverse tape wrapped with the sticky side and see if you can touch the bulb with the sticky side, good luck.
To verify for you yes there are three bolts that hold the headlight to the vehicle for 04-06 model. Thank you
There is one at the top of the light visible from the top. Done
One to the inside of the light visible once you remove the black plastic trim cover that has the HID warning label on it Done
and lastly the hard one is behind the bumper on the side of the light. Trying to get to this now
These are all 10mm. If you remove the hardware holding your wheel well liner and then loosen the three bolts that hold your bumper you could then slide your bumper forward providing access to the side bolt. I loosen more than three bolts, and my bumper seems stuck. Is there clip anywhere inside the bumper that I can not see? I am baffled that the bumper still seems to be attached to something.
Where are these three bolts? Maybe I unscrew the wrong ones.
I suggest remove the high beam bulb that will give you much easy access to get the bulb out, you can try a cloth hanger with masking tape wrapped, then do a reverse tape wrapped with the sticky side and see if you can touch the bulb with the sticky side, good luck.
High beam has a cover in front of the bulb. No access from here.
I thought I was going to be the only one to suggest a vacuum, but Jimbo beat me to it. I'd use ANY sort of strong vacuum cleaner with a long flexible hose, then hopefully it has a circular crevice attachment. I'd then get a drinking straw (the kind with the flexible tip), and tape it in a fashion so to not lose much suction from the crevice tool to the straw.
My second suggestion would be a rare earth magnet and see if it will grab it from the outside? If not, tie to fishing line and hopefully it will be small enough to fit in the hole of the assembly? Rare earth magnets can bought at Home Depot for about $8 (small circular/disc kind). If it's too big, possibly break/cut it, then tie/glue to fishing line, then go fishing! There IS metal in the glass bulb---the filament and the base! Now as to if they contain any iron and hence ferrous, I can't answer that.
Do you think you could post a video of all the methods you try?
I tried the vacuum suggestion but could not get it to work. I ended up taking the headlight out.
Taking the headlight out is not that bad. It took me a long time because I could not tell where the two nuts that are holding the bumper. Now that I know what to do, I bet I can do it in 30-60min. This is what I would do if I am doing this again:
- Take wheels off. At first I tried with the front wheel turned all the way to left, but I can not get enough clearance.
- Take the wheel cover off. I can not remember exactly but 4-5 bolts and 2-3 clips. The idea is being able to bend the cover enough to see area under the headlight and behind the bumper.
- https://www.lexusownersclub.co.uk/fo...p-see-pic-plz/ . This diagram show one bolt that secure the bumper facing up. There are two close by which is hard to see. But if you take the wheels off and peel off the wheel liner, it is easy to spot. See picture below.
- There are two bolts that secure the headlight which be accessed from top. From onthelo's post "There is one at the top of the light visible from the top.
One to the inside of the light visible once you remove the black plastic trim cover that has the HID warning label on it "
- The third bolt that secures the headlight is behind the bumper.
- The headlight is also attached by a pin on top, so need to push the headlight toward front of the car. If you have enough opening from the wheel cover, you can push the headlight easily.
While doing this, I notice my high beam bulb is in bad shape, so you should check yours too if they are old. I am amazed it is still working as DRL.
06-27-18, 10:03 PM
I dropped the little parking light bulb into the headlight
