How to Remove Old Trailer Lights

Video Transcript

"In this step we're going to talk about the proper service procedure for removing your old defective lamps from the trailer. What I've got here is a flat blade screw driver, we're going to use this to pop the lens off in order to gain access to the mounting screws. Take and slip it between the cracks and just pry it off. Now as you can see here this is actually a waterproof wiring kit, it has a gasket in here or what use to be a gasket. This gasket has become embrittled and is no longer any good. Now they used waterproof wiring lamps, and paid for them, and they went and used wire nuts for your connection. That's going to be a little counter intuitive if you're going to go with waterproof you're going to want to use waterproof throughout the trailer. You're not going to want to mix and match, you're going to be putting good money towards a bad cause. Once you have the lamp off, I'm going to use my screw gun with the Phillips head bit and remove the two internal mounting screws, just like so. I'm going to save these just in case my new screws don't happen to match up. Alright, I'm going to go ahead and remove the lower mounting bolt, just like so, and pull my wiring through, just like that. I'm going to take and tap that screw out into my hands and save that, it may be necessary to reinstall this screw. Your new kit may not come with the appropriate size or it might not have one in it, so it's a good idea to hold onto the fasteners that you know will work on the trailer. This light is junk, we're going to go ahead and discard it. I'm going to head to the back of the vehicle and begin removing a rear lamp. Alright, again we have to remove the lens in order to gain access to the internal mounting bolts, Go ahead and use my screw gun, it's a Phillips head and as you can see we have four screws to deal with in order to get access to those bolts. Slip it on there, just like so. Alright, that is the way to remove your lens and screws. As you can see we have what we call carriage bolt, right here, now they have a head built on the opposite side of the shoulder. We're going to need to apply inward pressure as we wrench that bolt off. They use a carriage bolt just for room constraints. Now under conventional methods if your bolts are not extremely corroded, you'll be able to remove the lens and hold the carriage bolt still by pushing inward on the bolt head. You can then take and unscrew the retaining nut from there and remove the lamp assembly. However, if you live in the northern state, which is part of the rust belt, it may be necessary to destroy the lens, in order to gain access to the stud portion of the carriage bolt. From there, we going to take a hack saw and cut the bolts off. It's just the nature of the beast. If you live in the northern state where salt is going to be flicked from the tire onto the rear lamp, it's going to happen to you. Now depending upon the age of the lenses, and how long they've been there, you may be able to get them off, or you may have to actually cut the bolt. In this situation we're going to cut the bolt, you're going to use a hack saw, with a mildly aggressive tooth pattern. As you can see the teeth here, they will have a number which specifies the number of teeth per inch, we're looking for something around thirty-two. We're going to take some pliers and hold the bolt still, and begin cutting the head off. You're going to continue on with your cutting procedure until you have the bolt cut all the way through, it will then pop out and you're ready to reinstall your new lamp, right there. That is the proper method for cutting bolts off. Now that we have our lens retaining bolts properly dispatched, we can go ahead and slip through what's left of the wiring through the holes required, just like so. As you can see they had a little bit of foresight when they ran the original wiring on this. This is a small piece of rubber hose, it's nothing special. What this is is a cushion for that sharp corner that the wires take when they dive at a ninety degree from the bracket here to the front of the vehicle. You're going to want to take and reuse this rubber hose or install new stuff when you install your new lamps. This is the proper service procedure for removing frozen bolts and removing your old defective lamp assemblies."