97 Taurus - cigarette lighter repair

When removing a power adapter from the cigarette lighter, the bezel of the lighter came off with the power adapter. The other half of the lighter now hangs by its wires inside the flip-out console housing. How can I repair this? If needed, how can I remove the flip-out console housing to allow access?

Thanks,
Don Culp

Welcome to the forum!

Typically these lighter sockets are threaded together. If you have both pieces and the threaded portion appears to be intact, you can thread them back together. You'll probably want to remove the fuse in the process though so you don't inadvertantly short the lighter socket in the process of assembling it.

Then, once it's all back together, try to just pull accessory plugs straight out rather than rotating them as you pull.

-Rod

Rod --

The problem is that I can't figure out how to hold the interior part (behind the flip-out console) while I thread the exterior part into it. I tried pulling the interior part through the hole but it seems to be too large. Hence, I assumed that the flip-out console would have to be removed. (My Taurus LX has the floor shifter. The flip-out console (if this is the right word) is located directly in front of the shifter.)

Thanks,
Don Culp

Don,

I just had the same thing happen to my Taurus' cigarette lighter. Did you ever find the answer to you problem? If I find out a way to fix it I will let you know too!

My solution --

Pull out the ash tray (located to the left of the cigarette lighter). You will find a small opening on the right side of the resulting cavity. If you have small fingers you can reach through this opening to grab the base of the cigarette lighter (to which the wires are attached). Then screw the exterior part into the base part. (I inserted a pair of needle nose pliers into the external part (all the way to the bottom) and used the pliers to help rotate the external part.)

You might want to disconnect the fuse to the cigarette lighter before trying this.