I've replaced the gears in both headlights of my 88. The job wasn't nearly as difficult as I expected but.... Thought I reassembled properly but I must've missed something. Intermittently, the headlights either don't open or don't close. To cure the problem I need to turn the adjusting wheel on top of the motor which gets very tight. Any ideas....? Suggestions on how to correct this problem would be appreciated!!

 

Great tutorial! I used this one a couple of weeks back, and it worked great. I used the metal eBay brushings hoping that I won't have to do this again for a while. Thanks for a great write-up!

 

Great write-up. I did mine last summer and it was a pain to get the motor off even on the bench after I removed the whole assembly.
I changed the notorous bushings (what a crappy Design) and it worked ok. Had trouble finding repacement bushings for hinges and etc,and
finally made some from hardware standard teflon bushings.

Thats the good news, now a year later,the bad headlight (left) has again decided to take the summer off and not open.

Can't believe those bushings died that quick. Took the motor off again (easier this time) and the bushings look like new with no obvious problems visiable. The motor runs either way with 12 volts applied to it.
I changed the contoller module last year which didn't help so I may try the old one which I kept.

Anybody got any ideas?: The door sometimes opens half way but then stops and sometimes won't close and sometimes will. It sounds like the bushing thing but they are ok???

 

You're really good. You information and pictures are very informative. Ain't digital cameras great! Being a child of the 60's, my memory isn't what it used to be and a documented procedure, with pictures, saves me from figuring out the same thing over and over,

 

Sounds like one of the plastic gears is stripped. All it takes is one tooth which is sometimes hard to see unless you look very closely.

Sometimes it will disengage when it hits the broken tooth and the headlight stops rotating. Other times it will have enough momentum to continue past the broken tooth and re-engage on the other side.

 

my headlight dosent close all the way it wobbles up and down

and when the motor is connected it runs continuously but will still go up and down with the switch


bushings?

 

Sounds a whole lot like bushings, especially the halfway rotate part. I just got lucky on the fix. Didn't know what I was doing from the start (the original thread in another forum was a comedy/mystery of error, without screwing up anything fortunately).

 

This looks like *exactly* what I need awesome. Does anybody know if it applies to a C5 / 2003, or if they're different how they're different?

 

Thank you! Just did this on my '96, and with the exception of not having lower assembly screws, it was perfect!

 

I did this tonight EXACTLY as you did, however when installed, the right headlight goes up when the left goes down, and vice versa. I didn't do anything to the wires...HELPPPPPP.........

 

Sounds like a relay problem...I've seen this before (search don't work!), somebody will tell you what exactly is going on.

 

In case you didn't see my post:

 

Actually, a search on Google revealed this :Corvette c4 headlight motor rebuild after replacing the main gear from wear and the three plastic rotatating parts upon reassembly one light goes up while the other goes down the wiring is not reversed?" on Wikipedia, but no answers.....other than "There are many responses to this on corvetteforum.com.
Can somebody help me with this? The 'vette is apart in the driveway.........

 

OK....for all.....I reversed the gray and green wires, and that did it......

 

I just finished replacing the bushings in my 90' and the same thing is now happening to me.. One side goes up.. the other goes down.. Would be humorous but I just spent about 2 hours on it..

Did you remove your electric motor completely? I did.. Maybe I put it back in 180 off?

Any idea what causes the motor to spin in one direction or the other?

 

Ok.. just fixed this... What I did to fix was to unbolt (not remove) the electric motor on the side I just replaced the bushings in and turn the motor 180, then bolted it back up.. Now the headlights are working correctly.

When I removed the electric motor I must have re-installed it 180 off.. (I didnt think it mattered... but now I know it does!)

-Bill

 

Schrade: Thanks for taking the time to do this post. I have been having a problem with the right headllight on my 89 and finally she just stopped staying closed. I used the GM Helms manual and your write up to remove the light assembly. I had one "mell of a time" getting the little metal clip that holds both the light and the motor power lead to the edge of the hood.

You asked for suggestions to improve this and here they are:

1. Make a photo of the fasteners you have to remove to get the assembly off the hood.
2. The first step would be to move the roll pin (using the 5/32 punch) while the assembly is attached to the hood. You can manually move the light assy (using the **** on top of the motor) to allow easy removal of the roll pin. I had problems holding the assembly on a table while removing the roll pin. Do this while it is attached to the hood!
3. Make a photo of the fasteners you need to remove to free the motor.
4. Here is something that no one has mentioned or suggested! Instead of paying $2 each for three little plastic parts (these cannot cost more than $.03 to $.04 each to make......and Ecklers charges $6 for three small pins???), you can make 'em out of hardwood dowel. Get some 1/2 inch hardwood dowel from Homer Depot and cut the dowell lenght to 3/8 -7/16 in length. Do not exceed 15/32 in length as this is the height of the cavity for the three pins. I put three wooden dowels in my right light and she works like a charm. Here is a photo of the dowels in the gear if anyone is interested.



5. I highly recommend that you lubricate each bronze bearing with a few drops of motor oil as you re-assemble the motor.

The fishing line trick for the brushes is pure genius

Ole Sam

 

Wonderful, thank you.

 

both of my rotor motors wont shut off when in the off pos. or on the on pos. any help please

 

In order to solve your problem, you must first understand how the headlight motor system works. It works like this:

1. A DC motor drives each headlight up/down after you activate the switch on the dash.
2. The direct current motor is driven by 12 volts and draws a certain current as it moves the door assembly up or down. When the door assembly reaches its stop (up or down), the current draw of the motor increases very rapidly.
3. The headlight relay (on my 89) has a current sensor that detects the increase in current and opens a switch to turn off the motor.

If the plastic bushings (inside the motor) are broken into little bitty pieces, the plastic gear will not drive the metal gear and the high current needed to stop the motor is not seen.

From the brief description of your problem, you either have two headlight motors with detiorated plastic drive pins or your headlight relay is defective.

I hope this info is useful to you!

Sam