I couldn't find a part of this forum on exterior stuff so I figured "body" is as close as it got. My firebird lights won't come up anymore, either one of them. Since I bought the car I had to hold the switch between the off and up/on selection in order for the lights to come up. Now my lights won't come up at all but the lights still come on (both the parking lamps and headlights). I can't drive at night with the headlights down though . Any ideas? I highly doubt it's the motor and the only thing I've done between the lights coming up and not coming up is disconnecting the fan power line and installing a switch to turn on the fan manually.

 

if you had to mess with it before to pop up your lights. sounds like the switch has been dying and now it finally kicked the bucket. It you absolutly need to driving at night you can bring the headlights up manually.

open the hood and turn the black wheels, located on the headlight motors. You'll start seeing the headlights pop up slowly. dont over crank them. thats a temporary thing if you have to drive at night. in the mean time you should replace that switch.

thats my

 

It could still be the switch even though all the lights still come on? Is the motor operated by vacuum at all....wasn't sure if I had a leak or something if it was.


Thanks for the info...tried the manual adjustment and it worked.

 

not sure about how it was in 1985, but on my 1987 GTA, there is a headlight control module located on the firewall near the brake booster. sometimes that can go bad and if it does, it won't sent voltage to the motors for them to work.

I had heard that before this module came out, there is a relay somewhere that controls them, maybe that went out on you.

 

Anybody know if there is a relay like Kevin said and where it'd be?

 

On mine it's on the fender, near the firewall - i believe. There is also two more relays up at the headlights. I haven't got mine working yet but I know where they are roughly cause I traced the wires back as best I could to each relay. There's also another relay I didn't even see tucked up front in the battery area, have to take the battery out to see it. Not sure what it is yet.

Try doing a search, there are lots of threads like this with various answers.

 

I have a similar problem, my lights don't come up either. My pass side one will, but it gets caught on something every time and the driver's side is just not coming up at all. So when I need em, I crank em up manually and when I turn em off, they both go down just fine.

 

The headlight switch in the dash is famous for going bad and the lights wont come up but on still.

Change it or hot wire it.

Mine are wired into the fog lights now. When I turn them on my lights pop up and light now. Did it for a quick fix to get home, havn't touched it since.

 

I don't have fog lights though.

 

I have A fog light, but it doesn't come on... but then again I haven't checked to make sure it's even plugged in yet. lol. Any ideas to get my pass headlight to stop getting caught?

 

Oops I meant marker lights, same as turn signals but the ones that are on all the times in there. No hot wiring or blown fuses. So I only turn on the small tab. Was an easy quick fix to get home one night and has worked for a long time that way.

 

flip your headlight switch and see if the two motors spin. If they do, that means the gears inside the mechanism are fried.. you can get a rebuild kit for like $20 i think. If the motors dont spin, then you're gonna have a hell of a time tryin to figure out whatevers wrong with them..

 

HA, yeah, they don't spin. Figures right? Am I better off just hardwiring a switch to the positive wire?

 

are they plugged in?
if so.. its possible that the motors in them blew out.. especially considering that you said the quality of operation slowly deteriorated over time.. that really sucks.. they are really really expensive to replace

 

No, not really. Go to birdsandbowties.com... click Buy It Now Parts and scroll to the bottom. $30 to replace each of them. They are like $90 for new ones everywhere else I have looked.

 

Yeah their plugged in because they worked and then stopped. So I shouldn't be looking for relays or replacing the switch, I need new motors?

 

If it was me, I would go ahead and look at everything just to be on the safe side, but IMO, I think it's the motors. I know the motor in my drivers side is bad because it won't come up at all, won't even attempt to. It goes down just fine when I turn the light off, but it won't come back up. I gotta replace it.

 

The swtich is famous for going bad, if no pwer gets form the switch to motors, it won't help.

Yep them motors can fail but its more liley the switch.

hot wire the motors and I bet they work.

 

the switch would definately be the cheaper way to go, but, it's pretty easy to test to see if the switch is bad or not.. get a multimeter and set it to measure resistance. disconnect the switch and probe the wires, when the switch is on it should measure no resistance or a VERY VERY small amt. When 'open' or off, the switch should measure infinite resistance. Try that before replacing any parts. You can also test the electromagnetic coils in the motors if you can find what the resistance rating should be on those things.. If it's any different from normal, then the motors are shot. You can also test the motors by, as whoever said it, hot wiring them. Be careful with that though, you can actually destroy the motors by running too much power through them. If you hot wire them and the motors don't spin, try switching the wires. If they still don't spin, then your motors are shot. If the motors spin but the lights don't come up, then the gears inside the mechanism are worn. I doubt it's the gears though because you said when you flip the switch, the motors don't turn at all so it's either the motors or the switch, or maybe a relay in between. I'll try to find you a wiring diagram of the whole headlight system.

 

I dont see two motors going bad at the same time but who know. I had a nightmare of a time getting mine to work considering they were missing everthing including wires and relay. On my 84 t/a there are three relay. one at the bottom of each motor and one beside the radiator on pass. side. If the both failed same time i would say the relay at the radiator or the headlight switch its self. also you could try when you put head lights up do they go down when you turn it off.

Edit: opon reading your post again i'm going to have to say to replace that headlight swich. If you tear it apart you can understand how it works theres differt switches in side for the lights to come on and for the head light to come up.

 

No they don't go down.




Is the thing on the left the relay?






Anybody know where I can get a new switch?

 

yup that's the main relay.

check for a new switch here

http://www.moderndaymuscle.com/inc/sdetail/581

 

check the wire colors attached to the relay. they should be
yellow, pink, white, black, dark blue and dark blue/white stripe.

check for ~12 V on the yellow wire when the headlight switch is in the on position. if you don't have V there then it's either the switch or wiring from there to the switch inside the car. if you have 12v on the yellow then check the pink wire. you should see ~12v there also. if not ... bad isolation relay.

 

But in my situation, it would have to be my headlight motor right? The light comes on and goes down by turning off the switch, but it won't come up by iteself when I turn the lights on.

 

If this is still your issue DY then I'd say your pass. motor is bad. the nylon gears inside have excess wear in spots and either the worm gear is jumping out of the teeth or the reduction gear has cracked teeth. (both the same gear )


[IMG]file:///C:/Documents%20and%20Settings/Tony/My%20Documents/My%20Pictures/firebird%20cowl/P1010001.JPG[/IMG]
the gear on the left is the reduction gear. the gear in the middle attaches to the metal arm to raise the bucket (better than assy).

since one of your motors is lifting then it could be the actuator relay that is bad. swap relays between the two. they are either mounted on the HL motor itself or on the fender (make sure they are the same relay, I found our the hard way that you can swap an isolation relay and an actuator relay ... then your lights won't raise at all.) if it's the relay then your drivers HL will raise but not your pass. once they are swapped.

Hope it helps
Tony

 

I have the same problem on my 88' bird. the passenger side comes up just fine, but my driver side comes up then falls down then back up, then just goes back down. I have to pull it up my hand then sometime it wont lock into place so as im driving and hti a bump it will just fall back down. In fact it falls down so hard that it broke one headlight already. The slider that the headlight moves up and down on looks bent at the top, could this be causing my problems??? Or should i try swappping modules out of my 89 formula to see if tha helps? sorry to jack the thread but i cant figure it out.

 

Well, my passenger side light is fine now. I was just getting caught on the nose of the car. The nose wasn't properly aligned when the previous owner put it back on, so a quick fix and the passenger side motor is great.

The driver side now... it doesn't come up by itself. I have to manually raise it, but it will go down by itself when I turn the lights off.

 

They use two sources for up and down you might have a bad wire i forgot to hook up a wire and the would go up but not back down. not sure what wire is for what off the top of my head

 

I just had the same problem. It's the relay. It looks the same as the one you pictured in the previous post. The driver side relay sits just behind the battery. The relay cost me $18 from Car Quest.