Changing the Two Front Side Light Bulbs

I thought that while there was a break in the rain I would change the two front sidelamp bulbs on the wing as it only looks a five minute job

I'd previously changed the headlamp bulbs by removing the front plastic and changing the bulbs by feel, however the sidelamp ones seem a bit more difficult, space is limited and I can't seem to get my hand in there like I did with the headlamp bulbs

Anybody got any tips on how to do this without the need for a front end stripdown..

Unfortunately it’s a whole other animal- you have to access those bulbs from behind, so you are looking at a strip down of the dash area to get in from behind- I’ve done it and it’s a pain.

Unless either or both the sidelight bulbs have blown, I'd leave them alone. I had a go at changing them for LED bulbs in my Silver Wing days and the whole procedure was a pain in the arse.

When you pull the bulb holder and wires back to change a bulb, withdrawing it back squeezes the bulb out of it's holder and it drops down inside the headlamp reflector. Both left and right bulbs did this.

Then you have to remove the upper headlamp bulb and need a flexible grabber tool to feed inside the reflector and make multiple attempts to grab the bulb and hold it long enough to get it out of the reflector.

There's a couple of old posts of mine describing this ball aching tedious task. Along with how the LED's were a waste of time as one of them lasted less than a month. Then it was fishing two LED bulbs out of the reflector so I could reinstall the OE bulbs.

The OE bulbs that never blew originally and were trouble free for years afterwards.

Meldrew
That's sound advice, that's exactly what I'm trying to do, change to LED's. Think I'll leave them standard for now.
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It would be wise to read previous topics on accessing those bulbs and the reliability of LEDs etc.

I chose to replaced every bulb when I bought my SW seven years ago with OEMs. I wouldn't want to go near those side light bulbs again 'by choice'.