Anyone who has had there headlights stop poping up and took them apart will know what im talking about ( I HOPE)

The car is my 87 Trans Am. about 3 monthes ago my drivers side headlight started to make this really bad noise then it was really slow getting up. so i took it all apart and after a few times i relized that on the motor there is a shaft that goes down then ingages into a plastic gear, the plastic gear then has a shaft off of it that connects to a arm which will swing the head light up.

so i drilled a few holes in the metal that connects to the plastic gear so that there wouldnt be any play and it would start coming back up. well the drivers side works great and doesnt make any noise. last weekend the passenger side started the same thing. so i took it apart. did the same thing. now it makes more noise then ever. its coming from inside the motor. when i turn them on they come up then them motor starts screaching a few seconds its already up. as if it is still trying to get the head light up.

what is causeing all this noise? and how do i get it to stop!

i did the exact same thing to the passenger side one as i did to the drivers side. drivers side doesnt make any noise and the passenger side is embarresing!

 

Mine aways cycled longer than it took for the headlamp to pop up or down. It was about enough time to turn them on and run to the front of the car and lift the light. This was what I did when mine went out.

Mine never screeched, just stopped poping up. While you had them apart did you grease them at all. Maybe some of the plastic worked its way around inside and is somewhere stuck causing the screeching in the pass. side one. One of the nylon gears disintigrated in my headlamp motor and the residue was everywhere.

 

Well, it's fairly obvious to me that it's because your signature is too long. I mean... damn, that was a long post and it just barely ended up being longer than your sig.

Quote:

and how do i get it to stop!

All I can offer is a visit to my site (make sure to hit the refresh button when you get there) and check under "Electronics" for headlight fix. You may just want to take the whole friggin mess apart and fix it right. Make sure not to overtighten anything.

Steve

 

Steve... Alright, i know what your talking about and that makes very good sense. I plan on getting the bearings tomorrow after work and then messing with it. (nice site!)

i just wonder why this one is making all this noise and the drivers side isnt. i did exactly the same thing to both sides and i dont know what it could be.

redraif... I put some 3-1 oil around in there. tomorrow when im at the hardware store i'll pick up some grease.



Its just terrible to have a good clean looking older car and then hit the lights and WHOA sounds like that thing is falling apart!


I hope all this works!

 

I forgot to mention that some have used pieces of dowel rods (wood) to use in place of the bearings with good results. You may have a hard time finding the bearings.

Steve

 

Thanks Alot.

Today i went out and bought some bearings. they didnt have them marked .38" or .4" so i just bought a hole bunch of them...


i got three that fit really good in there, stuffed some grease in there and put all of it back together.

works great. i took me about 45 minutes to do all of it.

there is still a little squeak in one of the moving parts so i took all of that apart again and greased it all up.. the squeak is going away after everytime i pop them up or let them down.


Thanks again!

 

Glad it worked out!

S.