Hi all. I'm hoping someone can offer a suggestion to fix this so I don't need to replace the entire tail light assembly.

I found a leak that was caused by a bad tail light gasket. I bought new gaskets online and when I was tightening the nuts I ended up breaking the top middle bolt. I need the top bolt to keep it water tight, but I can't access the bolt, or I would just swap it with the one on the bottom. The problem is that this one bolt is not accessible through the holes for the light bulbs so I can't replace it....as far as I am aware.

Is there a way to open up the assembly and get to the bolt, or will I need to replace the entire assembly. It seems like this should be something I should be able to replace but I can't find a way to get to it. I don't want to try and separate the glass from the plastic backing because I'm afraid I'll just open up another place for water to get in. It doesn't look like it's made to come apart.

Any help would be greatly appreciated. It took me a long time to find this leak and I very disappointed that now I have another road block to fixing the water problem.

Thanks :-)

 

BTW, the car is a 1980 280zx non turbo

 

If you could take pictures of this it would help.

 

Welcome to ZDriver!

IIRC (it's been a while since I've looked at the back of a tail light) the studs are pressed into the plastic housing. If you are careful, you should be able to pull it out and insert another one (from a junk yard tail light). Or, if it broke the stud in half, just weld it back on.

As Twiggs said... a picture of the damage would help.