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I am following Alann Boatright directions on repairing/rebuilding my headlamp motor. He warns that it is bad to have the bearing come out with the motor. It appears mine did. How should I proceed? The bearing is on the shaft very tightly. should I remove it from the shaft, or clean/grease everything up and put it back in as it sits right now? Should the shaft be spinning inside of the bearing? Mine is not, bearing is too tight on shaft to spin. Thank you for the help.
With a little "tap" the bearing released. I sanded the end of the shaft more and the bearing now slides freely on and off of the shaft. What is the best method for getting the bearing back in?
I found an older thread that discussed taking motor end plate off, grinding off small tack welds to expose retainer spring, and reassembling. That seems very daunting. Has anyone found a way to simply press the bronze bearing back into the retainer spring? Not looking forward to possibility of tearing into this any more.
Has anyone found a way to simply press the bronze bearing back into the retainer spring?
I did it years ago on one. Wasn't fun. Had to go in somewhat sideways and used picks etc to lift the fingers. Once in the fingers didn't hold the bearing in real tight.
I found an older thread that discussed taking motor end plate off, grinding off small tack welds to expose retainer spring, and reassembling. That seems very daunting. Has anyone found a way to simply press the bronze bearing back into the retainer spring? Not looking forward to possibility of tearing into this any more.
That would be the best way to do it. Some have pushed the bearing back in and used some JB weld on the sides to hold it in the housing with success. Not my first choice though.
If nobody posts a solution on how to press it back in, and I have to remove the retainer, what is the best method? Any pictures? I'm not looking forward to this!
Going by your pic, it appears as though the shaft actually WAS turning inside the bearing however, the notch for the thumb wheel looks as though it's been widened to the point that it was the possible culprit which removed the bearing, along with the shaft. When removing the shaft it may have caught the bearing thereby causing the bearing to pull out.
It doesn't sound as though there's an easy fix here. I too might be tempted to try the JB weld "after" checking the end clearance at the thumb wheel notch. Good luck!
Gary
Last edited by Gary's '66; 02-01-2017 at 09:04 PM.
After procrastinating for a few days, and doing a little research, I removed the retainer and spring. It went much easier than I anticipated. I decided not to cut off the bottom end. I used my dremmel tool with the flexible extension and several different grinding bits to grind away the spot welds. Only took about 20 minutes of careful work. I ordered a new bearing, spring, and retainer and I have chosen to reattach the retainer with JB weld around the edge only so the spring/bearing still operate as designed. Hopefully all goes well.
Update:
I reassembled the bearing/spring/retainer. I attached the retainer around the edges with JB Weld. The spring and bearing operate normally. I reinstalled the motor today and all is good. A word of advice for anyone removing a headlight motor, after you slide out the motor, use a sharpie and mark the orientation of the "slot" that the headlight bucket slides into. It takes a lot of time to rotate it and get it aligned if you forget to mark it. It will save you a bunch of time reinstalling.
Update:
I reassembled the bearing/spring/retainer. I attached the retainer around the edges with JB Weld. The spring and bearing operate normally. I reinstalled the motor today and all is good. A word of advice for anyone removing a headlight motor, after you slide out the motor, use a sharpie and mark the orientation of the "slot" that the headlight bucket slides into. It takes a lot of time to rotate it and get it aligned if you forget to mark it. It will save you a bunch of time reinstalling.
After reading numerous articles on repairing lazy C2 headlights, I decided to try it myself. Why not, if I fail I can always send them out. Removing the headlight motors without removing the hood was not too difficult, the hardest task being removing them from the shafts as I believe they had been on there for 53 years. I did the passenger's side first. When I disassembled it, I found the hardened original grease and a disfigured drive gear. I initially chose to do the rotating fix mentioned on previous posts.
When I attempted to remove the electric motor to clean the contacts, the brass bearing came out with it. Bummer. I searched the forum for suggestions on how to reinstall it and found most of the suggestions addressed bending the spring or removing and grinding it and reattaching with JB Weld. Those approaches scared me and I had no confidence in my ability to successfully accomplish that. So, I came up with an alternative. I decided to try to reduce the circumference of the bearing by sanding it with 60 grit sand paper. I can't tell you how much brass that I sanded off but it was not much. Then, I put a light coat of lithium grease on it and placed it on the spring. Then, I took a 1/2 inch ratchet extension with a 7/16 deep socket on the bearing and placed the housing upright on my work bench. I then hit the end of the ratchet extension several times with a hammer and Voila!! Installed.
I have the same issue with the driver's side motor and am about to start sanding that brass bearing.
During the process, I was uncomfortable with reusing the main drive gear so I purchased new ones. What a difference. I purchased them from Zip. The price was very reasonable and shipping was prompt. Hope this helps and thanks to everyone who shares their expertise about these wonderful automobiles.
02-01-2017, 11:54 AM
Headlamp Motor "Bearing" Question. Need Advice
