All done now, with a couple of hiccups along the way.

First hiccup was forgetting to reconnect the internal connector, so the indicator/hazzard lamp worked but the others didn't.

Some minor head-scratching and cursing took place until I worked out the problem.

 

Second hiccup was discovering a little split in my paintwork. (below)

I cleaned that and applied a little touch-up paint to cover the hole.

EDIT: I also gave the rubber mounts on the car that the light locates into a little squirt of silicone lubricant to make sure the light comes out without too much drama when the bulbs do go.

 

Beyond that, it's all back in place and looks more or less as it should. 👍

Edited 18 October, 20241 yr by EnterName

4 hours ago, EnterName said:

Second hiccup was discovering a little split in my paintwork. (below)

There's bound to be another OCD Octavia owner worrying about whether their vehicle has a crack in the paintwork at that point.

I'm certainly going to check the other side on my car over the weekend. 😄

To rise your stress levels, I had a crack around that area which I only noticed after enough rust developed to visible outside panel 🙄

Post-mortem

 

On 13/10/2024 at 15:02, EnterName said:

Does the lamp actually split into more than one piece?

There seem to be two sets of torx bolts.

Set one - Five bolts circled Blue (Philips head)

Set 2 - Four bolts circled Pink. (Torx T20)

To answer my question, no, it does not. It is bonded together by some sort of weld or melty adhesive.

It is this "weld" that fails and allows water ingress.

 

On 13/10/2024 at 16:25, EnterName said:

Beyond that, I tried unscrewing the five Philips screws, but they were "giving" in an odd way, and I had visions of undoing something that might subsequently move and be impossible to re-assemble, so I bottled it and took the 4 torx screws out and removed the bulb cluster out.

I now know I would have loosened the reflectors inside the lamp unit and quite possibly fubar'd my rear lamp cluster had I done this.

So "bottling it" should perhaps be changed to "Came to my senses and avoided a horrific mistake due to not having a clue what I was doing.". 😄