The plastic mounting flange on my '03 taillights is now very brittle and cracking badly. In fact, the screws on the driver's side taillight has very little to hold on to anymore.

Short of buying two new units, my other option is to try to find a way to reinforce/repair the degrading plastic. Has anyone done a fix to the mounting holes or have suggestions how to go about doing it?

Thanks,

Andy

 

2 of the 4 of mine are hanging on by a thread. I tried to reinforce with that epoxy do all stuff from the car stores but it cracked too.

 

I "fixed" the mounting tabs on both of my taillights but making some small brackets out of aluminum. Don't really remember the thickness, but I think it was about .060" or so. What I did is make two brackets (one for each mounting tab) for each taillight. I traced the outline of the existing mounting tabs (or what was left of them) and used it as a template to cut out the aluminum brackets. I made them each about 3" long. Leave enough aluminum to bend a 90 degree lip that's about 3/16" tall on each bracket. I used three small sheet metal screws (obtained from some RC hobby supplies) to attach each bracket to the taillight. If you look at the taillights, you'll see that there's enough room to attach a thin bracket just under where the existing plastic mounting tabs are. The original mounting tabs also have a very slight curvature to them. You can easily put a slight curvature into the aluminum brackets as well. After doing some trial and error fitting (before I actually drilled the small holes into the taillights to attach the brackets, I marked each bracket and made a hole in each one that is the same diameter as the original mounting tab hole. Once I was pretty sure that everything would line up and match up with the original tabs, I used a Dremel tool and cut off what was left of the broken plastic tabs. After painting the brackets satin black, they look pretty close to "stock." Total time to fab these things up and install was probably only a couple of hours. I found that to be a whole lot cheaper than having to replace the entire taillights. If necessary, I can take a few photos and send to anyone that may be interested in how they look.

Good luck trying to find any type of an adhesive or glue that you can use to repair the broken tabs. Based on how brittle my tabs were, I doubt you'll have much long-term success.

Bill

 

Thanks for the response. After a trial run with epoxy and as you all have said, I am having my doubts about it working.

Bill: Could you send me picture of how you fabricated and mounted you aluminum mounting tabs? email to edwardsape@verizon.net

Thanks

Andy

 

Bill....I would love to see how you fabbed up the aluminium brackets. Can you post pics? I'm sure others would be interested as well.

 

Mine are cracking and will need repair soon, pics would be greatly appreciated

 

My apologies if this is the wrong thread, admin feel free to move accordingly. The black trim moulding on my rear spoiler tail light is dried and breaking off. See attached. I searched the parts list and can only come up with the red plastic light housing itself (additional brake light 996-631-050-01), no mention of the plastic moulding. Can anyone tell me a PN and/or means of repair/replacement? Thank you!

 

I believe the black trim is integral to the light itself...all one piece, and that there is no separate trim moulding sold.

 

Black gasket comes with the light, not separately. Whole assembly was about $85 from Suncoast Porsche.