okay this is really weird, lets see if you guys can figure this out. when i turn on my lights, the headlights do not pop up, but the lights do turn on. however, after manually putting them up- when i turn them off , the headlights DO go down and the lights turn off. The motors are in perfect working condition, so that's not it. What could it be.... thanks

 

do you have the 3 wire motors or just the 2 wire ones?


I've seen this before and its turned out to be the motor every time

 

Do you pull them up, or turn the ***** to get them up? If you just pull them up, the gears are shot.

 

It is the Relays. I have the same problem. Replace the relays and you should be fine.

 

The gears in them don't strip. There are 3 little nylon "buttons" in the main drive gear that act as a clutch. When these "buttons" get old they start to fall apart and the gears slip but you can still manually crank them up. Now when you put them down gravity is helping to lower them and they don't slip as much, but when trying to raise the weight of the light assembly they simply won't engage.
See Top Down Solutions for an inexpensive repair kit http://www.top-downsolutions.com/pro...e2864386760323

DO NOT use a metal pin or ballbearing to take the place of the buttons, it WILL ruin the nylon gear in time. For $20 this kit is well worth the money.

 

i turn the **** to manually bring the headlights up.... are you sure its the relays... if so, where are they located...
btw, its 3 wire

 

2 relays are on the inner fender, near the strut tower(1 on each side). The third is on the passenger side, on the radiator baffle. The one on the radiator baffle is not the same as the other two, they are not interchangable with the other two.

Matt

 

just get 3 new relays and replace the old ones... that's it, and it'll be all set? do you have any pictures of where they'd be located and what they looked like... there is a mess of wires under my hood.

 

In an '86, I'm bettin' you don't have 3 relays. It should all be controlled by a torque sensor on the firewall(5"x5" flat box...black. on drivers' side just to the passenger side of the brake booster...it slides into a bracket)

If this is the case, it most likely is not the problem, as you say they do go down.

Open the hood and listen for the light motors as you have someone else turn them on for you. If the motors run, then its' the clutches in the motors.(the little plastic ***** mentioned in an earlier post.)

If this is the case, go to www.transamtemple.com .....(look under "Electronics")he has a neat, and inexpensive, fix for your problem.

 

Morley, His headlight actuation unit has two smaller gears in it, not the single large gear with 3 gel inserts. Those were used on 1987-92.

Lon Salgren
Top-Down Solutions

 

The 3 relay system was used till '86. The control module system was used in '87 when the motors were switched.

Matt

 

its not the motors.. the motors are perfectly fine.. i know this for a fact... they moved in both directions when i sent the 12 v circuit thru it. its the wires or the relays...

anyways... where exactly are the relays located? where can i buy new ones? do you just have to splice the wires to put the new ones in? thank you

 

The two on the fenders can be bought at parts stores. The other on the radiator baffle has to be bought at the dealer, I havent found them anywhere else.

They just plug in, you dont need splice them.

Matt

 

are they located near the firewall, or near the front? and are they next to each other?

 

Okies, I can admit I'm wrong.

 

I'm betting the problem is the relays. I just went through this whole thing with my 88 (I realize I have a module and he has relays). My motors were OK (jumped directly, they worked in both directions). If I dialed them up manually and plugged in the module, they would go down but not back up. The module has a double throw relay inside it that was stuck in down position. So every time I plugged it in the power would be sent and the doors would close. I changed the dash switch, all the connectors to the switch, cleaned all the grounds - with no change. Bought a working module, plugged it in and the doors are 100% perfect from the first throw of the switch. I bet your relay(s) are suffering the same ailment.

 

does anyone have any pictures of the relays? that would help a lot.. i don't want to take something out thats just going to cause me more problems.

 

Well I dont have any pics or a camera, but they are black squares. They are smaller then the fuel pump relay. The are the same size as a foglight relay.

Sorry I dont have a pic.

Matt

 

OK...I'm wrong. They changed to the module in mid-85.(from all other sources I've found).

You have 3 relays....one on each headlight motor and one on the firewall. The one on the firewall is mounted with the fuel pump relay....in a cluster on the drivers' side.

There may be 3 there(can't remember what the occasional third one is for), but most likely only 2.

They are small (1"X1"X1 1/2 , black). The one that doesn't click when you turn the ignition key is most likely it.

 

The 3rd is actually on the passenger radiator baffle. The module used on the '87-'92 models is on the firewall. The other 2 are usually on the inner fenders near the strut towers, thats the stock location. 3 relays are defintily used.

http://www.fieros.de/en/articles/headlight.html

Go there, read on the '84-'86 system, thats the relay system. Fieros used the same motors.

Matt

 

Matto'85TA...Then would you care to tell me why those relays were mounted on my headlight motors in the '83 I had? They are also on the motors in my sons' '85 TA.

And also why they are on the motors on every "old style" third gen I've seen in the scrap yards?

Just curious.

 

the article from matt says that the isolation relay is on the firewall... but is the isolation relay near the radiator baffle as you mentioned? or is it somewhere else.....

tell me if this sounds good

get new isolation relay, replace it...

if that doesn't work.. replace both relays that control the headlights...

furthermore... you can get the isolation relay from an autozone or somethign or no?

 

fairly strange: I honestly don't know. Every car I have seen the relays are in the areas I have mentioned. All those cars were '84-'86's and '87-'89's. I have heard that there were different motors used on '82-'83 cars. 4 wires were supposedly used, but i have yet to see actual photos of it. In my car(a '85) the relays are in the locations I have said earlier. I am positive that is the stock location on my car. My buddies '86 is the same way. So I don't know why the relays are in the differnt locations. I'm only stating what i have seen and what people have told me.

Dingley: Check both locations for the relays. As far as I know the isolation relay is not availible in the Autozone. I had to go to the dealer for mine. The other 2 relays are availible at autozone, i paid about 14 each for mine.

Maybe someone else can clear things up, cause i dont want to spread the wrong info.

Matt

 

Matto'85TA...I'm not meaning to "bust your chops" on this, but in all seriousness, in the old style 'birds I've dealt with there is a relay(3 wire motors)on each motor and one beside the fuel pump relay on the drivers' side firewall. These were/are unmolested wireing harness cars.



Trust me...I'm no expert! I'm relatively new to these "newfangled" 'puter cars! The "slave" relay may well be near the radiator....and I may be all wet!

I'll be the first to publicly admit I'm wrong if I am!!!!!

On another point, yeah, you're right. Last time I checked the motor relays are available from AZ...the third...as I call it..."slave" relay is dealer/junkyard only.

But sounds like his motor relays are working fine....figgurs, don't it!....Its' ALWAYS the b****rd part that fails!

 

Don't worry about it, I could be wrong and if i'm wrong I'm wrong.
The only things I got in that area that resembles a headlight relay is my foglight relay.
I haven't dealt much with many pre '85 cars. Almost all the Firebirds and TA's I have worked on have had TPI too. My lighting harness is untouched, I wish my engine harness was the same

I just looked at a Haynes manual and they have a pic of a motor with the relay mounted right near it, so I don't know. Maybe different harnesses were used depending on the engine/options/year?

I don't/didn't mean to come off as jerk or know it all. I'm just trying to help and pass of the info I know, though now I may have to 2nd guess on wether its true or not.

Your right though, it may not be the relays. Possibly the fusible links are bad, and no or little power is getting to the motor.

When I fixed mine, I replaced the 3 relays, but it still didnt work. Then I replaced 1 motor cause the HTS was bad. I figured it was bad because that motor acted wierd- with all new relays plugged in it would go up with the lights off, and the glass tube on it looked "burned out"(black on the inside of the glass) The dealer said the HTS was discontinued, and 1 on the motors was also discontinued(driverside or passenger, I dont remember) They also wouldnt sell me a HTS out of a new motor (if one motor is still made, then obviusly the HTS is still made, then why arent they sold separately )

Anyway, they still wouldnt go up, but they did go down. Then I checked for 12 volts at the red wires and there was no voltage. I ran a wire from the battery to the red wires and the motors worked perfectly. After it was all fixed I hooked up the bad motor and it acted the same as before.
So, it could be that the fusible links.
Whew! Sorry that was so long.

Dingley: Check for power at the red wires that go into the relays.

Matt

 

Sorry, this is a bit long....but it might help. I found this on the Fiero Club site. When he says "Its' more than you ever wanted to know"....he ain't liein'!LOL

Honestly, I wish I'd had this info back when my stepdaughter had her '84 4 banger!

"Info - 84-86 models
All 1984-1986 model Fieros use a similar headlight system to the 1982-1986 Firebirds. There are two motors, and three relays in the system. Here's how it works:

Here's more than you ever wanted to know about the headlight door circuitry for the older cars which use relays in lieu of electronic controls. Sorry about the bandwidth, but there's no easy way to say it. Hope it helps someone.

The headlight door motors reverse direction by reversing polarity. However, the automatic shut off (high torque switch, or HTS) makes that a rather more complex task than at first it might seem.

That's because when a motor reaches its limit, one of the 'wires' is disconnected from the motor by the HTS. Reversing the polarity at this point wouldn't do anything since the circuit is broken by the HTS.

Consequently, each motor has three wires which for control. The combination of the blue wire, gray wire, and green wire provide polarity reversal to the motor (to make it able to run in both directions) and to run each motor from its resting state, after it has shut off.

There are of course two motors. They operate and are controlled identically.

Here's the matrix:

RIGHT HAND MOTOR

Blu Grn Gry
up: (+) (-)
dn: (+) (-)

That is, in order to run the motor up, the system connects the green wire to the hot side and the gray wire to ground. In order to run the motor down, the system connects the blue wire to the hot side, and the green wire to ground.

The left hand motor operates the same, except for its blue wire is actually blue with white stripes.

There is an actuator relay for each light mounted on the body of the light housing(edit.....at least I now know I haven't been hallucinating! ). There is also an isolator relay, mounted on the fender wall on the driver's side.(edit....this is the one on the drivers' side firewall of a Firebird) When operating properly, the two actuator relays act identically.

The actuator relays get their instructions from the isolation relay. When the motors need to run down, the isolation relay is not energized, the blue (and blue/white) wires make with the hot side through the closed contacts of the isolation relay (which is not energized), and the ground is furnished to the motor through the closed contacts of the actuator relay until the circuit is broken by the HTS. When operating properly, neither the motors nor the relays draw any current in the full down position.

When it's time to go up, the actuator relays are energized when the pink wires coming from the isolation relay are connected to the hot side through the newly closed contacts of the isolation relay, the isolation relay is energized because the yellow wire coming from the head light switch is now hot. When the actuator relays are energized, they furnish 12v from the always hot red wires, through their newly closed contacts, to the green wire. The motor is grounded through the newly closed contacts of the actuator relays. The motors will run up until the circuit is broken by the HTS. When operating properly, with the light doors in the full up position, all relays are energized and draw current, but the motors do not.

There are very counterintuitive things about this circuitry: When the motors are running UP, both the hot side and the ground are furnished by and through the actuator relay. However, when the motors are running DOWN, only the ground is furnished by the actuator relay because the blue and blue/white wires do not run to or through the actuator relay.

Similarly counterintuitive, when the motors are running down, the hot side is supplied by and through the isolation relay, but when they are running up, the hot side is supplied not by and through the isolation relay, but through the always hot fusible link.

That's how the headlamp door relays and motors work. The relays are not cheap: $17 ea for the actuator relays and $25 for the isolation relay. Proper trouble shooting can save a buck or two.

It is fairly easy to swap the actuator relays from side to side. If the symptoms change with them, than its probably the relays. Although the actuator relays look similar to the isolation relay, they are very different, they cannot be swapped. Please note that the system is very interdependent, and it's easy to see why Pontiac changed to electronic (as opposed to electro-mechanical) controls."

 

My car is having the same problem and I am going to go to GM and buy a Isolation relay next week for it. I did a search and seen this and I think its going to fix my problem and I hope it helps others and as far as where mine are in my 1984 lg4 trans am their is 2 that can be seen just by looking at each finder well right in front of the strut tower and the third is hiding behind the battery by the end of the radiator, hope that helps some one and i also want to say i don't know for sure that these at the one for the headlight doors but i think they are.

Kevin

 

My friends T/A was doing the same thing you are explaining. I traced the problem to his headlight switch. One of the wires on the switch sends a signal out to the headlight to lower. That wire wasn't getting power. I replaced his switch and all is well. I am just suggesting a possibility.