Please Help! Bumper Cover

My headlight covers have fogged over, and I am in the process of removing them to give them a cleaning. The only way I could tell to remove them was to first remove the bumber cover. I have got almost all the bolts/screws out of the bumper cover, but there is one of those plastic screws right underneath the headlight cover.

Does anyone know how to remove the screw beneath the headlight covers? it almost looks like I would have to remove the headlight cover first, which i might be able to do, but I am scared I won't be able to get it back together.

any help would be gratly appreciated.

sorry i have a 95 eclipse rs

You dont need to remove the bumper.... just take an super long socket extension and a socket on the end of it and wrap a rag on the end so it does not scratch anything. Then push it in there, and get it on the end of the bolt and unscrew that sucker out :biggrin:

Dont worry i learned it the hard way too.

Thanks for the reply, ashah000. Sorry for being a little dense, but I just want to make sure I understand. Your talking about pulling out the entire headlight houseing, correct? Not just the clips to the headlight cover. How did you go about getting the socket in there? Through the fog light holes or some other direction.

Thanks again for the information. I've got to get this car back together before the wifey gets upset.

Yes I am talking about the whole headlight, I put the extension through the gap between the headlight and the bumper.

thats going to be tight. I can only push the bumber cover down enough to get about a 1/4 inch gap directly under the headlight. Thanks again for the advice.

yea you just slide a 10mm socket and a long extention i didnt even use a rag and it didnt scratch. i dont kno why they designed the headlights liek that. you cant take the headlights out without takin the bumper cover off and you cant take the bumper cover off without takin the headlights out..... stupid

hey how do you clean those headlights? i dotn want to break them and i cant get the lens off of the housing.

To get the lens off you have to bake them, so the glue heats up, and then you can take it apart.

I just go in from the backside with a bare hacksaw blade and cut that POS lower mounting tab clean off... Makes it easier for me to pull that headlamp at the track for cold air intake. In my pics on my page you cna see the headlight missing in the track shots. I use just the top most 10mm to hold each headlight in. Just my method, if you get fed up with trying to get that bolt out ;)

95 GSXracer,

can the same thing be done for the 97-99 model? im having a few problems...

there is also another way that is way easier than taking off just the cover, you can take off the whole bumper...

[this is very easy if you jack up the front end from behind the front wheels]

take off the 2 bolts in the wheel wells [both] and pull gently to pop the cover off the body

remove the bolts holding the front clip to the top by the latch.

look under neath and you will see 2 parallel bars facing fore and aft, aparently attatched to the bumper. there are 2 bolts on either of them. remove these 4 bolts.

the whole bumper will now slide off, cover and all.

this worked 10000% better than doing battle with the bumper cover itself. i looked at the fact that the light has to be moved to take off the cover and the cover has to be moved to take off the light and figured there has to be another way. the guy's at Mitsu aren't so smart that they make a sic engine and no easy way to do this...

oh, and on the 2nd page of the link in my signature is a write up on how to split the headlight housing. me and a friend originaly came up with the plan on a 95 gst [now resting in totaled car heaven]

http://files.automotiveforums.com/gallery/watermark.php?file=/500/100978bumper_cover_removal-med.JPG

the red circles indicate what to unscrew

Boosted spyder beat me too it. DAMN YOU MAN! and here I thought I was gonna have a chance to look smart. Follow the diagram he included (very nice) and the whole bumper will come off making the headlights very easily accessable. Either cut or bake. Both are pretty easy, one is a little more permanant. After finishing you might want to add some silicone to keep this problem from happening again. that way they're completely sealed and they won't fog over again. then just repeat the process and put the bumper back on. Shouldn't take you more than an hour to do everything. Good luck

funny part is i had no diagram or help and it took me like 4 hours to do what i was doing [taking the amber turn lens out], essentially the same as you are going to do...

did you guys know that i'm gay?