Remove headlight from 90 Camry?

[fix_wifes_camry]

Gentlemen,

First post - hello.

I have a 1990 Camry. The driver's side headlight lens is shattered from a stone on the highway. So for the first time I want to get the whole headlight unit out, not just the bulb.

Open the hood: There is a spring on one top corner, no problem. There's a threaded post on the other top corner that passes through a plastic mechanism with a screw in the top. Turn the screw and it backs the post out - must be a worm gear inside. Good. There's another threaded post on one of the bottom corners with access to a Phillips screw head on the front of teh car via a little passage hole in the trim. OK.

BUT THEN - there's a fourth threaded post on the outside bottom corner. No access to any screw head from the front. I can barely see a nut that it passes through way down in there, but it's highly inaccessible. I removed the coolant overlfow bottle and managed to get a socket on it using a u-joint fitting on an exension, and it turned, but the entire post turns, so it's not coming out that way.

So I removed the driver's side turn signal assumbly to get in from the side. Still no go.

Is ther some magical trick to this?

Thanks a bunch

[atobe]

remove the grill..you'd have to remove the piece below the head light also... wedge it out some how.. and there's 3 screws holding that piece on... some magic with a long screwdriver will do the trick... once that piece comes off the rest is easy

[fix_wifes_camry]

Ya, I started to do that, and then thought I was on the wrong trck. Seemed like not the brightest design having to disassemble the front grill just to change a headlight. But OK, will do.

Thanks.

[fix_wifes_camry]

Well, just in case anyone ever reads this thread again through a search, here's the final word:

Turns out that on these vehicles you cannot change just the headlight. The headlight - that is, the lens and the plastic body in which the light bulb is mounted - is held in a metal frame by one fixed post and two adjutable posts. This is not meant to be disassembled.

To get teh assembly out, you have to remove the front grill, remove the piece of nose body just in front of the hood - multiple bolts, remove the marker light via two screws, then locate and remove the four nuts that hold the headlight frame to the body. It's rather tight to wiggle out.

[atobe]

yeah it's a dumb idea but oh wells glad u got it out