i bought turn signal bulbs that are clear but light up orange. so my friend and i were putting them in my car today. we had just attached the bulb to the socket and he was screwing it in when there was a clunk noise.
i look down and the bulb is chillin in the housing. we cant reach it with our fingers, tongs, or a stick with gum.

i drive to his house to get tools so we pop open the hood and try to unscrew the brackets. we get one screw off and start working on the second when my friend loses his grip on the wrench and it drops underneath the engine we are able to grab it from under the car. we decide this is way outta our league so we attempt to put the first screw back in. we think its tight and he pulls on it and it comes flying out and ends up next to the coolant. hahahaha. we rescue the screw and i drive to pepboys where i bought the bulbs. they use a metal rod with double sided tape and got it out for me. THANK GOD. who would have thought changing the turn signal bulbs could be so hard...

 

While I'm happy you solved the problem, I'm not sure that it qualifies as a "potential disaster"

 

well we would have had to take apart the light and since we cant even put a turn signal bulb in, imagine the carnage we would have caused removing those brackets

 

I have 2 things that can be used for your situation:
1. extendable magnetic thingy used for getting that screw you dropped down in the engine while working on it...
2. this long thingy with a claw on the end....it bends and all you do is push the handle down and the claw opens...got it at Target...nifty.

 

oh i could have def. used both of those. it would have worked for the screw and the guy at pepboys tried to use it to get bulb, but the bottom of it was aluminum. no luck. how big is that claw thing? area under the hood is tight!

 

i had that happen with my taillight, dropped the turn signal bulb in the taillight housing. had to center the bulb in the housing, and used my insanely long index finger to pull it out...took about half hour tho

 

Future disasters can be further avoided by you two not doing any work on your poor cars.

 

the claw thing opens up just wide enough to fit a signal bulb in its "jaws" and is about as thin as a pencil when closed (I checked)....it's just a long, bendable wire thing that's about as big in diameter as a pencil and about a foot long

 

when i first got my maxima i had a bulb stuck in the tailight, i backed the car into my drive which is on an incline so the bulb came closer to the hole, then i used a q-tip and tape to get it out...it worked!!

 

is it just me, or did anyone else laugh hysterically after reading this. I mean, its like he can't hold on to anything. lol.

 

Great use of the smileys Gsilk!

 

haha i did the same thing a few years back doing the same thing. Dropped the bulb in the turn signal haha. used a screwdriver with some tape and got it out. lol it was pretty funny.

 

hahaha. it was quite funny. my friend felt really bad about dropping the bulb into the housing. i wasn't mad at all. its not as if he dropped a hid bulb or something else thats expensive. i had been thinking about painting my tails but maybe i'll reconsider that idea.

 

Make sure to pull up to the "FULL SERVICE" lane at your local gas station