Binnacle issue

[davidrbroder62]

I hope someone can give me an idea here. I had to remove my instrument cluster and because of a combo of the car plastics being cheap and 9 hundred million years old the binacle broke off. At the back is a plastic bracket held on by a Philips head screw. Of course the screw head is on the wrong side and I can't get to it. (See pic) what you see in the picture is the ass end of the screw deliberately taunting me.
As I'm sure you all know the space is tight so it's impossible to get even the smallest of screw drivers back there.
Does anyone have a suggestion as to how I can remove this screw without further screwing (pun intended) up the bracket.

 

[elevensies]

can you not fabricate from some thin aluminum a couple of fixing points?
id glue it on, probably stronger than the plastic

 

[davidrbroder62]

can you not fabricate from some thin aluminum a couple of fixing points?
id glue it on, probably stronger than the plastic

 

[davidrbroder62]

That's an interesting idea.
I'll have to take a closer look. My plan was to take the broken piece of bracket and epoxy it back onto the binacle. But first I'd have to get at that bloody screw.
But I can see about engineering a work around as you suggested. If I have any further questions I'll get back to you.

 

[davidrbroder62]

That's an interesting idea.
I'll have to take a closer look. My plan was to take the broken piece of bracket and epoxy it back onto the binacle. But first I'd have to get at that bloody screw.
But I can see about engineering a work around as you suggested. If I have any further questions I'll get back to you.

I took a look at the binacle and am wondering where you might put these pieces of aluminum so that I don't have to drill holes in the binacle and ruin it while at the same time securing it to the dash and the instrument cluster pod.

 

[Rudyrov]

I hope someone can give me an idea here. I had to remove my instrument cluster and because of a combo of the car plastics being cheap and 9 hundred million years old the binacle broke off. At the back is a plastic bracket held on by a Philips head screw. Of course the screw head is on the wrong side and I can't get to it. (See pic) what you see in the picture is the ass end of the screw deliberately taunting me.
As I'm sure you all know the space is tight so it's impossible to get even the smallest of screw drivers back there.
Does anyone have a suggestion as to how I can remove this screw without further screwing (pun intended) up the bracket.

The gold clip in the picture is the "nut" being used by the screw you are asking about.
If you can grab the edges that surround the screw and bend them you will in effect remove the nut and the screw should fall out.
They look like this;

 

[t-tony]

Called "spire nut" or "speed nut".

Tony.

 

[Rudyrov]

Called "spire nut" or "speed nut".

Tony.

I call them cheap nuts! Thanks Tony

 

[davidrbroder62]

The gold clip in the picture is the "nut" being used by the screw you are asking about.
If you can grab the edges that surround the screw and bend them you will in effect remove the nut and the screw should fall out.
They look like this;
View attachment 319921

I took your suggestion but unfortunately the plastic bracket broke. So I'll have to figure somewhere way to secure the Binacle.