Headlight Motor Noise
Thread Starter
Instructor
Joined: Jun 2007
Posts: 146
Likes: 0
From: Dallas TX
Headlight Motor Noise
When I turned off my headlights this morning, the left motor continued to run even though the headlight was completely down. I had to turn the car off to get it to disengage.
Afterward, running without them on, it was fine. Just tried the lights and the same thing occurred.
Any suggestions on what the problem may be and the fix?
It is a 2000 with 67K miles.
Thanks!
Afterward, running without them on, it was fine. Just tried the lights and the same thing occurred.
Any suggestions on what the problem may be and the fix?
It is a 2000 with 67K miles.
Thanks!
Racer
Joined: Nov 2006
Posts: 270
Likes: 0
From: Dallas Texas
Inside the housing there is a gear that controls the up and down motion of the headlight. It is made of plastic and gets ground down very easily. Eventually your headlight will not come up if you continue to let it do that without replacing them.
At the top of this section of the forum is a sticky called "weights, measurements, etc." or something like that which discusses it in length and the different people who make replacement gears.
At the top of this section of the forum is a sticky called "weights, measurements, etc." or something like that which discusses it in length and the different people who make replacement gears.
Instructor
Joined: Jul 2007
Posts: 217
Likes: 4
From: Lafayette IN
I just posted this in "priceless"
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jayindy's Avatar
Member Since: Jul 2007
Location: Lafayette IN
Default
Ditto, Ditto, Ditto on the forum being priceless...
...2 weeks after we had our new to us vert, our headlamp door rolled up fine, but terrible grind to close. From searching CF one member suggested taking a punch and hammer to the small metal tabs that secure the 2 housings together.
Made sense to me. The housings were simply out of alignment causing the worm gear not to mesh with the larger plastic driven gear.
My lovely wife held the housing (she is a trusting soul) and I wack'd the tabs with a large punch and hammer. The headlamp then rolled down perfectly thus putting a big grind on both of our faces..thanks forum! (total cost $0, at least for the moment
jayindy's Avatar
Member Since: Jul 2007
Location: Lafayette IN
Default
Ditto, Ditto, Ditto on the forum being priceless...
...2 weeks after we had our new to us vert, our headlamp door rolled up fine, but terrible grind to close. From searching CF one member suggested taking a punch and hammer to the small metal tabs that secure the 2 housings together.
Made sense to me. The housings were simply out of alignment causing the worm gear not to mesh with the larger plastic driven gear.
My lovely wife held the housing (she is a trusting soul) and I wack'd the tabs with a large punch and hammer. The headlamp then rolled down perfectly thus putting a big grind on both of our faces..thanks forum! (total cost $0, at least for the moment
Le Mans Master
Joined: Feb 2002
Posts: 6,937
Likes: 21
From: Waldorf MD
Support Corvetteforum!
jayindy's Avatar
Member Since: Jul 2007
Location: Lafayette IN
Default
Ditto, Ditto, Ditto on the forum being priceless...
...2 weeks after we had our new to us vert, our headlamp door rolled up fine, but terrible grind to close. From searching CF one member suggested taking a punch and hammer to the small metal tabs that secure the 2 housings together.
Made sense to me. The housings were simply out of alignment causing the worm gear not to mesh with the larger plastic driven gear.
My lovely wife held the housing (she is a trusting soul) and I wack'd the tabs with a large punch and hammer. The headlamp then rolled down perfectly thus putting a big grind on both of our faces..thanks forum! (total cost $0, at least for the moment
jayindy's Avatar
Member Since: Jul 2007
Location: Lafayette IN
Default
Ditto, Ditto, Ditto on the forum being priceless...
...2 weeks after we had our new to us vert, our headlamp door rolled up fine, but terrible grind to close. From searching CF one member suggested taking a punch and hammer to the small metal tabs that secure the 2 housings together.
Made sense to me. The housings were simply out of alignment causing the worm gear not to mesh with the larger plastic driven gear.
My lovely wife held the housing (she is a trusting soul) and I wack'd the tabs with a large punch and hammer. The headlamp then rolled down perfectly thus putting a big grind on both of our faces..thanks forum! (total cost $0, at least for the moment
To fix this you can move the gear 90 degrees, so you have new sections or replace with a brass gear.
What you did by changing your stops is to use a new section of the gear. You also made your headlight alignment off slightly and if you did this to the driver's side headlight, you may find that popping back up soon. If so, bend the stops back and fix the gears correctly.
Race Director
Joined: Aug 2003
Posts: 13,421
Likes: 8
From: Lake Mary Florida
Stickies were moved to the top of Tech/Performance.
Yep it won't last long once it starts making that noise and running on after the headlamp is down or up.
Replace the motor or remove existing and rebuild.
It absolutely blows me away that after a full generation run, C4 1983-1996 that Chevy engineers choose to use the exact same motor on the C5 to drive the headlamps. After all these years of knowing that the way they were designed and the materials used that they failed every few years. Yet used them anyway.
Probably when Dave says it was the hardest decision we had to make on the C6 to remove the flip up headlights what he meant was our engineers are absolutely stumped and cannot come up with any other design without using the same failing motor, well we just gave up and made the decision to get rid of the flip headlights and went with fixed ones.
If you have small hands, you can remove the lamp top cover and bezel, unplug the motor, remove the three bolts and one nut, and lift the motor out. Rebuild or replace. Takes about an hour per lamp.
More importantly, if this one is going the other will be right behind it within a few months.
Been there done that on the last three vettes!
Yep it won't last long once it starts making that noise and running on after the headlamp is down or up.
Replace the motor or remove existing and rebuild.
It absolutely blows me away that after a full generation run, C4 1983-1996 that Chevy engineers choose to use the exact same motor on the C5 to drive the headlamps. After all these years of knowing that the way they were designed and the materials used that they failed every few years. Yet used them anyway.
Probably when Dave says it was the hardest decision we had to make on the C6 to remove the flip up headlights what he meant was our engineers are absolutely stumped and cannot come up with any other design without using the same failing motor, well we just gave up and made the decision to get rid of the flip headlights and went with fixed ones.
If you have small hands, you can remove the lamp top cover and bezel, unplug the motor, remove the three bolts and one nut, and lift the motor out. Rebuild or replace. Takes about an hour per lamp.
More importantly, if this one is going the other will be right behind it within a few months.
Been there done that on the last three vettes!
Racer
Joined: Nov 2006
Posts: 270
Likes: 0
From: Dallas Texas
Stickies were moved to the top of Tech/Performance.
Yep it won't last long once it starts making that noise and running on after the headlamp is down or up.
Replace the motor or remove existing and rebuild.
It absolutely blows me away that after a full generation run, C4 1983-1996 that Chevy engineers choose to use the exact same motor on the C5 to drive the headlamps. After all these years of knowing that the way they were designed and the materials used that they failed ever few years. Yet used them anyway.
Probably when Dave says it was the hardest decision we had to make on the C6 to remove the flip up headlights what he meant was our engineers are absolutely stumped and cannot come up with any other design without using the same failing motor, well we just gave up and made the decision to get rid of the flip headlights and went with fixed ones.
If you have small hands, you can remove the lamp top cover, unplug the motor, remove the three bolts and one nut, and lift the motor out. Rebuild or replace. Takes about an hour per lamp.
More importantly, if this one is going the other will be right behind it within a few months.
Been there done that on the last three vettes!
Yep it won't last long once it starts making that noise and running on after the headlamp is down or up.
Replace the motor or remove existing and rebuild.
It absolutely blows me away that after a full generation run, C4 1983-1996 that Chevy engineers choose to use the exact same motor on the C5 to drive the headlamps. After all these years of knowing that the way they were designed and the materials used that they failed ever few years. Yet used them anyway.
Probably when Dave says it was the hardest decision we had to make on the C6 to remove the flip up headlights what he meant was our engineers are absolutely stumped and cannot come up with any other design without using the same failing motor, well we just gave up and made the decision to get rid of the flip headlights and went with fixed ones.
If you have small hands, you can remove the lamp top cover, unplug the motor, remove the three bolts and one nut, and lift the motor out. Rebuild or replace. Takes about an hour per lamp.
More importantly, if this one is going the other will be right behind it within a few months.
Been there done that on the last three vettes!
And you don't necessarily have to have small hands, mine are pretty big and I did it with a scrape or two :P
