Replaced Headlight Gear, Still Having Problem
Thread Starter
Drifting
Joined: Jun 2013
Posts: 1,286
Likes: 356
From: Iowa
Replaced Headlight Gear, Still Having Problem
I replaced my headlight gears with brass ones. I am still having the same issue as before. The driver's side headlight will not always go down. The gears were not worn too terribly to begin with (for having 84k on the car). Does anyone have any ideas what may be causing the headlight to stay up? I have replaced the plastic bump stops so that eliminates that troubleshooting step.
Team Owner
Joined: Dec 1999
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From: Here
Pilot of Beer Force 1
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sounds like you have the gears out of sync ...sometimes you can disconnect the arm and rotate the mechanism one full turn and reattach which is what I would do
Thread Starter
Drifting
Joined: Jun 2013
Posts: 1,286
Likes: 356
From: Iowa
Thread Starter
Drifting
Joined: Jun 2013
Posts: 1,286
Likes: 356
From: Iowa
I went ahead and took the arm off and rotated the shaft on the gear 180 degrees and it seems to open much better. So far no problems closing but when the headlight is almost shut it has a hiccup almost like it is skipping over a tooth or two. If it's not going to cause a problem and fixes the blinking eye then I'll just deal with it.
Drifting
Joined: Jul 2006
Posts: 1,291
Likes: 60
From: Somewhere out there
After replacing my gears I noticed that one of my motors seemed to have a fair amount to play in the shaft. I could push/pull the shaft back and forth about 1/8 inch. I used a dremel with a cutting blade to put a groove on the one side and install a 'c' clip to keep the shaft from moving. That solved my issues
Team Owner
Joined: Dec 1999
Posts: 174,312
Likes: 1,217
From: Here
Pilot of Beer Force 1
Tampa Regional Coordinator
CI 4-5-6-7-8 Veteran
Organizer St. Jude Fundraiser
I believe in the Beer Fairy
sorry I didn't get back sooner but you figured out what I meant...it seems that the headlights are never quite the same after the fix 
Race Director
Joined: Mar 2005
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the early vettes had a better housing than the later vettes. My '99 has the strong housing, and my '01 has a weak housing. The weak housing doesn't have any outboard support for the end of the worm gear shaft like the earlier ones do. The motor with the worm gear moves back and forth causing the worm gears to lose contact with the big gear. Reinforcing the housing or replacing it with a better part from an earlier vette is the only way I know how to fix the problem.
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Race Director
Joined: Mar 2005
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After replacing my gears I noticed that one of my motors seemed to have a fair amount to play in the shaft. I could push/pull the shaft back and forth about 1/8 inch. I used a dremel with a cutting blade to put a groove on the one side and install a 'c' clip to keep the shaft from moving. That solved my issues