OK, I have a bulb blown in my o/s front sidelight on my STI IV. I see one screw on the slam panel but removing this is not enough.. Where/what else has to be removed in order to allow me to remove the sidelight lens and change said bulb?

Cheers

 

Brute force! With a screwdriver/long thin tool gently insert behind rear of light unit and gently lever unit away from bodywork,it's held in place by a ball @ socket device,it should just pop out. hope this helps.

 

I uprated the sidelight bulbs (along with the headlights)in my MY00 only yesterday and was amazed at how hard it was to get the sidelights off. The passenger side popped out after about 5 mins fiddling, but the drivers side was a complete ar**. Took about 20 minutes of that "not sure how much force to apply without breaking it" scenario.

Anyway; assuming the front end is similar.... there is just the sole screw at the top of the sidelight attaching it to in my case the headlight unit. There is a ball socket joint at the bottom of the sidelight unit (which is the really tough bit to get out) and there are two plastic extensions on the side of each unit which insert into the car wing panels in the direction of the rear of the car (that make sense)..... anyway these can break easy as you attempt to get the sod of a ball joint to come free. My only advise with respect to this is to be sure to remove the side light out to the side slightly but predominantly towards the front of the car.... then you won't break them.

Try and lever it from the back if possible.

Lastly grease the ball joint when you put the units back in, saves a repeat performance. And you may need to push the sidelight quite firmly once lined up to get the ball back in the socket....you'll here it click in.

Regards, Light Guru.