Indicator bracket woes

[Tinonline 171]

A few gremlins are out and about in my LS400 year 2000.

The auxiliary bonnet catch has given up the ghost so an OE at outrageous £’s per square inch will have to do.☹️

More perplexing is trying to keep an indicator unit in situ. The top bracket has all but gone having sheared in a number of places...I drilled a couple of holes in what was left and have twice secured with wire and now string to keep it in the bottom of the unit moved out - cardboard wedges for now.

The side lug on the head lamp for the indicator has long gone. Also that wing has a slight ding in it from the previous owner. 
 

Fitting a new unit will just result in a sheared top bracket...fitting new headlight unit seems a bit drastic and costly...wing in that area does not look out of shape.

Any ideas would be welcome.🙂

 

 

 

 

[Herbie 1,844]

24 minutes ago, Tinonline said:

The top bracket has all but gone having sheared in a number of places...I drilled a couple of holes in what was left and have twice secured with wire and now string to keep it in the bottom of the unit moved out

You need something better than wire and string, something like Jenolite steel stick epoxy putty.

[steve2006 2,112]

Post up a picture of the bonnet catch you need, I think I may have one in the “Shed”

The headlight side mounting often gets snapped off due to the threads rusting and shears off with a small amount of torque from a 10mm spanner, if you can drill out the remains and glue a replacement in that would sort it or look for a good replacement headlight unit (sorry “shed” is out of stock on this part) 

[Tinonline 171]

Thanks...had another look this morning...the front headlight bracket bit is in fact intact but missing from indicator unit. Rear bit is ok on indicator but missing from rear of headlight.😁

I’ve gone for a new indicator unit as two retainers should work. I’ll place some Velcro along the side just to add support.

When I did my cambelt change at around 72k miles I replaced everything apart from the fan bracket. Now at 93k miles it’s getting noisy on cold start up but quietens down quite quickly. This morning: cold but not as last few days it was fine. Wish I’d replaced that so it’s another impending task.

I’ve attached some pics of the offending bonnet catch. The section shown has sheared off. 

 

[Tinonline 171]

Indicator fixed...sort of...

I was having problems securing my passenger side indicator unit: it would fly out and either hang of flap about at speed. It just gave up fitting whatever I wedged, stuck or wired to keep in still. 

I bought a replacement unit and noted the old one had two missing lugs to the outer side and the bracket loop on the headlight unit had broken off. With that the stress on the top bracket was too much and it gave up.

With help (again) from Andy the partsmeister from Lexus Reading I got hold of a bottom grommet that fixes the...anyway I think the pictures will explain. I've got a better fit but it does look as though previous wing damage has changed the wing enough to distort.

So now it's not perfect but serviceable. Velcro is retained to attempt some hold where the headlight fixing should be  - I'm not getting a new headlight unit!

I'll be interested to know whether there ought to be another grommet or lug in the top hole...couldn't find one listed and I'll leave the other unit well alone so I'm not checking there!