Headlight switch whoops

[Jothcra]

As I was pulling into the parking garage at Georgia State today I turned my lights on to see. When I parked, I went to turn them off, and to my surprise the knob snapped off in my hand, leaving the rotary switch pushed into the dashboard and inaccessible. Now this was a problem, seeing how I needed to turn the lights off, so I did some quick thinking and remembered I had some pliers in the cargo pocket in the back. Thankfully I was able to reach in there and turn the switch to turn the lights off.

My question: Is there any way to remount the switch and reattach the knob without disassembling the dashboard? The switch had been loose for quite some time and had a lot of play in it prior to this. I'm assuming that means the screws/mounting bracket or whatever is supposed to hold it on is no longer there.

 

[Joe Dirt]

No, the unit mounts to the back of the panel cover. It's 20 minutes to get everything off there, not a big deal.

 

[OneLever]

You have likely broken the plastic that the headlamp switch is secured by to the flush panel. There are two flimsy plastic screw holes that hold the switch in place. Mine broke simply from removing the screws when I was taking the switch off. I fixed the plastic with a little superglue to hold it in place, and then plastic epoxy for the main repair. Almost every plastic switch on my dash is slowly being fixed in this manner.

Take a look at this write up for how to access the switch. It can be done with very few tools and knowledge: Link
A temporary fix would be to leave the lights on and remove the interior fuse which controls them.

 

[Joe Dirt]

What color is your interior, I may be able to grab a panel for you with good tabs this weekend at the yard...

 

[Augusto]

exactly this same sh*t happened to mine today, seems like explorers have some pretty common issues, it would be great compiling all this small things together in like a database or something with the fix for them.