Just a quick post to say "THANK YOU" to whatever brilliant engineer at GM that decided it would be kewl to ONLY be able to change the taillight bulbs by removing the license plate and back-up lamps, then sticking your fat arm up in there to remove the inner taillight bulb socket, then the housing,  JUST to get to the outer taillight bulb....

THANKS FELLERS!!!

What is a 30 second job on my '74(or any of my other vehicles) took almost an hour on the '85. Pass side outer bulb broken, and not working. My arms are too fat to fit up in there easily, so now I have gouges on my left arm. Not the first time I've had to change bulbs on one, but....it don't get any easier the older I get......



|UPDATED|3/9/2014 7:51:39 PM (AZT)|/UPDATED|

Uh, that would be the same guy that thought   "we can make the front even more difficult by having to unbolt the little door on the underside of the front facia and make them feel around to find the bulbs! Since most people won't have a lift, that will mean he'll need to find some grass to wallow around on to get an arm in there. Then, re-seating the socket will be even better."

  Yer prolly right, John. 
I also have one of the driving lamps in the front I need to change. Funny thing is, I din't start out Sunday to change the freekin bulbs on the '85...I just took the cover off so I could fire it up and let it run for a while. It hadn't been started for a couple of months, and I figured it was time. While it was running, I DID want to fix a problem with a taillight on Mama's Caderack, which turned out to be a bad ground terminal connection IN the socket. THAT'S when Mama decided I needed to fix the taillight/turn sig on the Corvette....I growled, and she went back in the house.....

Looks like the same guy who decided to put the  Flashers & Turn signal relay inside the dash , OH yea the #6 spark plug was a pain in the arse to get too also .......... Thanks GM  

How about the GENIUS that came up with the idea to change out an illumination bulb for the speedometer:

What a pain!  Some of these things do seem far more difficult than need be.  Because I have much more slender arms than my hubby, I get to do a lot of the reaching in stuff.  He just directs me and together we can get stuff like that done.

|UPDATED|4/7/2014 1:22:48 PM (AZT)|/UPDATED|

LOL Laurie -- that's the best stroke of genius so far.  

That water pump over the distributor took some real 'planning' (especially a pump with a hole in it)

 Thank God these C4's have a lot of good traits and we can overlook some of these shortcomings.

C.

Outer light bulbs are best accessed from under the car. Long reach, but wide-open access between the body and the muffler.
Inner bulbs are accessed through the license opening.

The front marker bulbs are a piece of cake....the fog light lamps are another story. THANKS GM!