Headlight motor

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Aug 3, 2025 | 08:39 PM

Echoisc

Thread Starter

Heel & Toe

Joined: Jul 2025

Posts: 20

Likes: 1

Headlight motor

Just cranked up the corvette and turned on the lights, and the driver side won’t rotate up. It was working great yesterday. The light comes on and I manually rotated it up and it does rotate down when I turn the lights off. I don’t hear any grinding. Could someone give me some advice on what to do?

Aug 3, 2025 | 08:43 PM

Echoisc

Thread Starter

Heel & Toe

Joined: Jul 2025

Posts: 20

Likes: 1

96 corvette , didn’t mention that
from what I’m finding it could be the actuator relay.
Am I on the right track?

Last edited by Echoisc; Aug 3, 2025 at 10:09 PM.

Aug 3, 2025 | 10:26 PM

car addict

Burning Brakes

Joined: Apr 2017

Posts: 1,052

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From: Farmington MO

Had that problem once with a 96. In my case a new battery solved it. Maybe I was just lucky....

Aug 3, 2025 | 11:01 PM

RustyDuster

Racer

Joined: Mar 2025

Posts: 492

Likes: 241

Quote:

Originally Posted by Echoisc

For my 88' it was the plastic gears that actuate the headlight. The one on the driver's side didnt work and it was powderized when I opened it. The passenger's side did work and I chose to replace it anyway and it was hanging on by a thread and sometimes just enough teeth on the gear will be intact to allow it to work through certain phases of the rotation. It isn't a tough job, I just needed some time and a punch as well. A link to the DIY video I used is below, it showed good detail of the disassembly process but I did use a rebuild kit contrary to what the instructor in the video does. The kit didn't cost much. Headlights work great now.

Aug 4, 2025 | 07:31 AM

Echoisc

Thread Starter

Heel & Toe

Joined: Jul 2025

Posts: 20

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Thanks for the advice and attachment. Maybe it is the battery. I had a couple rough cranks the other morning and my sys light has been blinking for a few days with no active code that I can find. Maybe all this is just pointing to a new battery. If the gears were messed up in the headlight motor, wouldn’t it not work rotating up or down? Bc it closes smooth. The manual crank on top of the motor isn’t spinning when popping it up. Thanks for the advice I’m new to the corvette world but I’m hooked now

Aug 4, 2025 | 11:47 AM

RustyDuster

Racer

Joined: Mar 2025

Posts: 492

Likes: 241

Quote:

Originally Posted by Echoisc

That seems logical, but for some reason I could manually rotate mine because I needed to in order to access some of the screws on the assembly. Maybe because it was slower manually and there was more bite from the gears? I'm not sure. Unfortunately for the gear repair, you won't know their condition till you remove the light assembly and look at it and then you might as well replace it after all that work.

I am also new to the corvette world, got mine only four months ago and have been working on it since. Was hoping for the corvette summer experience but it took a bit longer than expected!

Good luck and enjoy!

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