Well I knew this day would come: one of the headlights(passenger side) on my '84 won't open when I turn the lights on. It budges about 1/4" inch then stops. After doing some diagnostics, it's looking like the gears need replacing (actuator relays tested OK).

No big deal. Ordered new gears. Shouldn't be too difficult to replace. In the mean time, I thought I'd manually raise the headlight so I can use the car at night if needed.

When I turn the **** in the open direction (as indicated on the ****), the headlight doesn't open. I've done this before on other C4 Corvettes - I know when you turn the ****, the headlight should slowly start to open - taking a million turns to completely open it. That's not happening for me. In fact I turn the **** all the way until it stops - and the headlight is still closed. When I plug it back in, I hear the motor run and see the **** spin back. Tried again - still nothing. I also noticed that the 'retaining wire' is missing from the headlight motor.

Any other way for me to open the headlight?

Chris
(auto_cran)

 

That's a sure sign your gears are jammed, for some reason. With the gears jammed, there's no way to get the headlight door to open. That 'retaining wire' on the manual control **** was only used at the factory during the assembly of the car. You don't need it.

If you would like some help in repairing that headlight door assembly, try this link ('84-'87 only):
https://www.corvetteforum.com/forums...placement.html

 

Thanks Roy. I was thinking the same thing - gears jammed. Got that thread bookmarked and ready to go - just waiting for the gears to arrive!

Chris

 

I'm thinking the opposite of jammed gears: stripped gears or (more likely) the little round "pills" that hold the gear to the motor shaft have turned to dust. So the motor or gear **** will spin, but the light doesn't actually move because there's no engagement. Can you try gently moving the headlight housing with your hands, possibly while turning the manual **** simultaneously? You might be able to get it to move that way if it's just sitting in there with no gear engagement to hold it in position. Just don't force it!

 

 

Oh, my mistake. Thanks for clarifying.

 

No worries.

 

Headlight is now fixed - but the problem wasn't what I thought.

I installed the new headlight gears following the procedure provided by Cliff Harris (link above provided by HHR). The larger white gear, which usually shows signs of wear, surprisingly was fine. But the smaller black one had about 5 teeth shaved off. I replaced both, cleaned up everything, greased it, and put it back together. Tested it on the bench - all worked fine. Now just need to reinstall on the car and done!

Well I put it back on the car - and sure enough - the EXACT same thing happened as before: turn on the headlights and the light just moves about 1/4" and stops. Even the **** didn't work when trying to turn it manually. What the heck? Time to really look into what's going on here.

After getting my wife to turn on the lights and me studying what was going on - I discovered the bottom of the headlight cover wasn't clearing the hood opening. If I pushed the cover slightly as she turned on the lights - all worked fine and it opened perfectly. Further, when I looked at the hood (with lights closed), I could see the headlight door gap (the one closet to the front of the car) was very tight. Now knowing this, I loosened all the bolts holding the headlight frame to the hood, shifted it up slightly, and tightened. All good!

So turned out I didn't NEED to replace the gears, but nothing was lost doing it, and one (the small black one) has some wear. So glad I did it. And now they should last a long time.

If your headlights don't open - check the door clearance - that may be the hang up!

Chris
(auto_cran)