Why does my passenger headlight go down at wot? Seems strange to me. Does vaccuum decrease at wot or something?

 

When fully opened the linkage should lock so they dont go down until you switch the solenoid and put vacume on the reverse side of the actuator. Sounds like right now your holding them open with vacume to the actuator only this is hard on the actuator probably need some adjusting.

Dave

 

Yes, manifold vauum drops to very low values at wot (since its the mostly closed throttle that restricts the air and creates vacuum at low rpm). Your headlight mechanism doesn't sound like it's locking, and that will eventually wear out the seals on your actuator. While you're working on the headlights, I would unhook the vacuum hoses going to the actuator at the relay so you don't damage any seals while you manually raise and lower the mechanism during the adjustment process.

There are two adjustments to check. First, there is a J-shaped bar that hangs from the headlight mechanism with a 1/4-20 screw and a locking nut. The head of this screw should be 0.040" away from the headlight frame when the lights are locked in the "up" position. It's possible that this has worked out too far, and this is what's preventing the lights from locking. You can see the screw with everything in place, but it's a bear to adjust. I had to unscrew the headlight bezel and remove the J-bar to get at the screw.

The other place to look is the adjustment for how far the actuator travels. This is set by how far the clevis is threaded onto the actuator shaft. To adjust this, you have to take off the springs, undo the cotter pin, pull out the steel pin and then give the clevis some turns in or out.

Hopefully, the problem is the first one. As you can see, the clevis can't change its adjustment while in place, so it would be weird for this to be the problem unless you've recently done some work in this area. I would also look carefully for anything loose around the frame or if the metal header bar attached to the top of the body has come loose.

 

 

Thanks for the info. I'll try it out this weekend.

 

Turns out that I had to adjust that bolt and replace the spring that pulls the locking mechanism back into the locked position. thanks for the advice.