My left headlight won't rotate up. I thought it was the motor because when you turn the lights on there is no noise or anything like a motor running (meaning trying to turn bad gears). This is how someone told me to check if it was the gears or the motor that was bad.

I disconnected the electrical harness, rotated the headlight up manually, but when I plug the electrical harness back in the motor works fine and rotates the light back in by itself.

I don't get it. Could the motor be fine but the gear be old? But why would it rotate down but not up if the gear was bad?

Any thoughts/advice? Just trying to figure out what parts I need to buy so I can fix my 84. Nothings worse than driving down the street with one up and one down.

Also, anybody know exactly where you check to find out if the headlight motor is a 2-wire or 3-wire motor?

Much obliged.


[Modified by NUFSED, 6:08 PM 11/2/2003]

 

try this.
switch the plug at the relay with the other headlight and see if it operates correctly. it could be a faulty relay. not sure sure if it located forward of the driver side tire like it is in my '90. but it's a black box attached to the tire well.
mine started to act funk as well. had to buy the silly thing. $120 at the dealership.

 

I'm not sure if the 84 and 93 lamps are the same, but assuming they are you might consider this.

Examine where the shaft goes into the motor housing. Its a metal shaft that is splined into a cast aluminum part. If the shaft slips, the motor needs replacing. Unless you can find a machine shop that can repair it. Of course if this is the problem. That's what happened to one of mine, it wouldn't go up on its own too much weight for the slipping shaft. If I rotated it up with the motor manually, then bring the lamps up and down with the switch it would go down fine (well almost fine).

Let's see if I can put a couple pictures here of it apart. In the second picture you can see the mounting bracket with the part that inserts into the lamp it self (has two pins coming out each side of the shaft). The motor in the lower part of the picture is disassembled. It shows the motor and housing, gear, splined part and cover. The splined part is what I'm referring to. You can see the aluminum cast part that the shaft presses into. That is what will slip, the shaft spins in the cast part.

If I remember correctly, you can spot the slip while your rotating it up manually you have to watch very carefully. If there is someone around you can see its behavior by monitoring it when someone energized the switch and you watch it go up. Initially, mine was just sloppy but enough to not let it go out, it got worst over a day or so until it just spun freely by hand and wouldn't stay up on its own.

I tried tapping it out some putting permanent locktite around the shaft and tapping it back in, then let it dry and put some JB Weld around the opposite side. Didn't hold at all, first attempt up it spun again. So for $234. I replaced the darn thing.

Hope this helps.