I have read every headlight thread that came up in the search and cannot find the one that had a link to the solid brass headlight gears. I saw one that has no rubber piece in the center it is just a solid gear with the slots for the center rod and now I cannot find the link. Help would be greatly appreciated.

 

Here's one source. Look in the "Electrical" section.

http://rodneydickman.com/retail_new.html

 

I thought this was the site but I do not find the solid metal gear without the rubber piece. Any other advice or section to look in? I think I have been to all the pages on his site.

 

I went to the site, clicked on the "Electrical" tab, scrolled down to the "Headlight Section" and clicked on the "Corvette C5 Metal Headlight Gears" tab. If that's not what you're looking for, I guess I can't help.

 

Here's the one I just bought and installed.

http://www.top-downsolutions.com/pro...roducts_id=128

And here's my thread detailing the fix.

http://forums.corvetteforum.com/show....php?t=1767764

 

Rodney furnishes a new rubber piece for the brass gear, it is supposed to last forever. He also furnishes metal braces for late model gearbox covers. I think you will find his kits the best. Everything furnished, lube and epoxy.

 

Gary and Patches thank you very much for your efforts. I did finally find the web site I was looking for:

http://www.bfranker.badz28.com/headl...rn+to+Merchant

This is a completely solid brass gear with out the rubber piece. I replaced the original plastic gears with the brass gears and new rubber pieces last year and the driver side is having problems again. Opened it up to find the rubber completely chewed to little pieces. I figured with solid brass I should not have any issues after this.

 

I had my driver side motor in and out 6x. It tore itself apart at the new epoxy joint. I finally threw in the towel and bought a new motor.

 

Me too. It doesn't help that I keep putting back in with the arm on the wrong side of the stops. I hope that this will be the fix and the last time I have the lights out. I have already spent $200 on these lights, the next $$$ will be for fixed lights.

 

When I started selling these C5 headlight gears many years ago I only sold the new brass gear and included some epoxy for the plastic type housings. Two problems arose. The original rubber bumpers in some had some damage. Only a few told me their OEM GM rubber bumpers were failing. In my opinion many had OEM GM rubber bumpers that still looked OK. So to make a better rebuild kit I spent the money and had a die made to make the rubber bumpers. I told them to use the best possible rubber compound they had and described the way it would be used. I do not know if my rubber bumper is better than OEM. I hope it is. The only way to see if they are better would to make a test station that cycled a headlight housing up and down and run some new OEM GM rubber bumpers and some of my bumpers. Unfortunately I can not undertake such a project to compare mine to GM's. The second problem was the side cover coming off on the late plastic type housings. I looked at that for a while and devised the special brace. I also worked with the adhesives people and found an adhesive that was slightly better than epoxy. The housing is possibly a nylon type plastic that nothing really sticks well to. But the steel brace takes all the pressure off the glue joint and the adhesive is not as important now. I have been selling these with the new rubber bumpers for many years now and have had literally no one come back and tell me their rubber bumpers I include in my kits are failing. Not to say that none have but I have had no reports. In time I'm sure my rubber bumpers will fail given the abuse they take. In time a second rebuild may be needed just to replace the rubber bumpers on C5's that have many headlight up and down cycles. In your case I would wonder if it may be that the controller is overly aggressive and not shutting the feed to the motor off as soon as it should be. That over time may be the reason your rubber bumpers have failed.

Rodney Dickman

 

Hi Rodney I hope I did not sound like I was against your product, I did not mean that at all. In fact I am very impressed with the T brace that you created. I have just been very fed up with taking the lights out, apart and putting them back in due to (1) poor materials from the factory with plastic gears and (2) the tendancy for rubber parts, even with some lubrication, to get so dry and brittle here in Southern New Mexico. I figured the solid brass would keep me from cutting up my arms every 2 years messing with the headlight assembly.

Even though I have never bought your product you are obviously getting great reviews from those who have and again I think the T brace is a great idea. I wish you great luck and lots of business.

Allen Tyree