Tonight was another enjoyable adventure in auto repairs, the Unmechanical Way.

I mentioned in an earlier post that when I had driven up to check out Monument Valley in early August, I was driving on a rutted road in some back country around the park when I got out of my truck to take a photo of a nice vista- and standing in front of my vehicle, there was my right blinker light assembly, dangling by its wire out of its socket in the front bumper like an eyeball from a skull.

Without any duct tape at hand, I had to try and come up with a solution to keep the blinker light housing in the bumper so that it was useful and remained in tact there for my long drive west from the edge of Utah to Red River, NM.

The MacGruber in me thought a wedged thing might do the trick- something wedged between the light assembly and the socket to hold the assembly in. In the short run, pieces of a plastic fork found in the cab of my truck served to be a great temporary fix.

Nine hours later, I had driven to Red River, NM, and the blinker assembly was still in the bumper slot on the truck.

About a week ago, I finally got around to thinking I should try and repair the situation.

I found a video on YouTube that described exactly what I needed to do to replace the broken blinker assembly with a new one.

I called the local Toyota dealership to price the part.

“71 dollars.”

I checked Amazon for the same part.

8 dollars for a replacement blinker assembly.

I thought, ok, I’ll go with the Amazon item.

I thought also that maybe by trying the YouTube video’s approach for removing the old light assembly from the bumper on the good blinker assembly I would gain some insight on how the new assembly should go back into the slot. I carefully pushed a flathead screwdrover into the inside vertical crack between the assembly and the bumper wall to apply a little pressure to get the notched peg holding that unit in to release.

Instead, I heard a crack, and this blinker assembly was suddenly loose in its socket, and when I pulled it forward and out, there were two plastic shards on the floor of the slot- tabs, presumably, holding the left blinker assembly onto the truck.

I ordered two blinker assembly units from Amazon. Fortunately, for $17 total, including shipping.

I put sizable twigs and pieces of plastic forks under each replaced blinker unit in their bumper sockets, obtrusive wedges that I hoped would keep the light assemblies in for another week.

Today, I received the right blinker assembly in the mail.

I pulled it out, looked at it. It looked great.

I went out to the garage, and got down on the ground. I removed the old assembly, and then swapped the light bulb I received in the mail with the old one on the wire harness. I put the new part into the slot, and it fit the slot perfectly. The part had what appeared to be tabs that would help hold the assembly flush against the bumper mount if the unit was pushed far enough into the mounting notch.

And I tried pushing the part into the notch for the good part of a half an hour. Nothing. The part would not snap into the notch, which should hold it to the bumper solidly.

I stewed for 10 minutes after trying and failing and trying and failing and trying failing to get the part to snap in place.

Well, the little tabbed connecting piece on the light assembly was, oddly enough, screwed on to the extended peg that let it meet the frame.

I was tired.

I unscrewed the tabbed connecting piece from the extension peg on the light assembly- and instead of pushing the connecting piece into the mounting notch to secure it, I put the connecting piece on the other side of the notch, and screwed the two plastic elements together, the tabbed connecting piece serving as a bolt on the inside of the bumper, to clamp the light to the bumper with a screw through two pieces of plastic.

I hope it works.

And I imagine the other blinker will go on the same way in a day or two.

If I get a year out of it, I will be happy. Two, three- ecstatic.

If it only works for a short time, it still probably worked better than depending on wedged twig and plastic fork pieces to hold the blinker onto the truck.

If it doesn’t work for real long, then at least I can try again.

I mean, heck, the units were only $8 bucks each.