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Its Gary from Brisbane, Australia again. Having solved the 'locked door problem' I've been back on the road again. But as is often the case, solve one problem and another arises. Unfortunatley, when I put the headlights on, the driver side was slow to rise, and when it did it somehow is misaligned and the back edge of the cover chipped the paint from the from the body. Worse still, the cover would not close and now both lights/covers remain open after the lights are turned off. If I put some pressure on the cover as if to close the cover manually, there is very strong resistance as if something has locked. Can someone please advise what may have gone wrong and what I can do to overcome this problem? Looking forward to hearing from you all on the forum. Gary
Just drove through Brisbane a couple hours ago.
Anyway, lay on your back. Stick your head under front of car. You can look right at the mechanism that works the headlight doors. Kind of a scissors type of linkage. Reaching up from underneath you can work the linkage that sort of locks in when it hits the top.
but can be pulled into place from underneath. You will never get them to close pushing from the top.
Then you need to repair the vacuum leaks and get things working again. I'm on the Sunny Coast. I can fix them in my sleep.
First make sure the manual override switch in the cabin (near trip meter reset cable) has not been pulled down.
Yes, you need to manually move the Actuator Link for the assembly to return.
Be careful, the springs are very strong and are there to assist...
You can get your finger pinched easily...
The mechanism was designed that you can open or close it manually. looking up from underneath if you push where the red line is shown the headlight cover should close. The vacuum system worked from the factory, but over the years it can be very frustrating to maintain.
I didn't see a year for your car, but the systems are all similar. I will make another post showing the vacuum system. It is for a '69 and should give you an idea of what to look for to find a leak in the system.
Here is the vacuum system for a '69. Later years had two vacuum relays in the front near the headlights, but the worked the same way. At some year the moved the vacuum tank towards the front of the car and I think they made it part of the framework.
In '73 they removed the Wiper Door mechanism, but you can see the system is a can of worms.
when pulling to open the lights it is very easy to break off the switch that says they are open. if the lights open slowly, look up at the actuators. see the smile shaped hole? that is where air enters when vac is sucked out the other side when the lights are opening. there is a bug nest in there restricting air flow. 3/16ths drill bit spun by hand will clear it out.
Last edited by derekderek; Jan 22, 2023 at 03:15 PM.
headlights won't retract
