Tail light removal—dumb question of the day

[69 Rustang]

Exactly what the title says, but there is a complication.  Two of the nuts/studs have rusted together.  When I tried to loosen the nuts, the backside started to spin—no joy.  Worst part is that they are the bottom nuts.  Any advice how to remove the nuts and studs for the taillights given the studs are spinning and you can’t grab them with a wrench or vice grips?  I am worried about breaking the tail light housing as they are quite brittle.  Thanks for any ideas or experience!  

 

[Carolina_Mountain_Mustangs]

They have a thin metal tab on them that held them in. You probably have rust so I would put vise grip on the tip of the stud and screw the nut back far enough to get in there with an air hack saw or cut off wheel and just cut the studs. I have done a couple sets of the housings recently and again I use the Krylon Fusion satin white paint and looks perfect. I blast the inside of the light housing with walnut shells to get the crust off. Daniel Carpenter makes the repo lens but only 73 so you have to do the black out on chrome. I did a little write up on them it is attached. I do side marker lights the same way. The side marker light lens is ultrasonic welded and I had no luck to get them off. So I took acid brush and bent so I could clean inside really good.

View attachment Tail_Light_Black.docx

 

[Kilgon]

They have a thin metal tab on them that held them in. You probably have rust so I would put vise grip on the tip of the stud and screw the nut back far enough to get in there with an air hack saw or cut off wheel and just cut the studs. I have done a couple sets of the housings recently and again I use the Krylon Fusion satin white paint and looks perfect. I blast the inside of the light housing with walnut shells to get the crust off. Daniel Carpenter makes the repo lens but only 73 so you have to do the black out on chrome. I did a little write up on them it is attached. I do side marker lights the same way. The side marker light lens is ultrasonic welded and I had no luck to get them off. So I took acid brush and bent so I could clean inside really good.

View attachment 46683

Nice write up David.

 

[69 Rustang]

I had started with a needle nose vice grips doing that, but they were rusted tight.  I sprayed them down with WD40 a few separate times.  I will hit them a few more times, then try again.  I was trying to just grab the unthreaded bit which is really hard to do.  I may have to go your route and catch the threads and resort to cutting.  Fun fun...

 

[69 Rustang]

I did get the troublesome taillight out.  After several soaks of penetrant spray, I put a ratcheting wrench on the nut, then held the threaded area with vice grips as suggested and got them loose.  Of course the threads were screwed so there was no way the nut was coming off, but by luck the slack provided allowed the clip to release from the tail light panel.  Just thought a follow up would be appreciated.