I got an 85 TA and the passenger side headlight isn't lifting anymore. However, it does come down when I turn the headlights off. A friend of mine said it’s the wiring not really the motor but I don’t know. What do you guys think?

 

The easiest way to find out if its the motor is to test the wiring at the motor....
Take a light tester and disconnect the motor put the aligator clip to chassi ground and the proder in one of the openings then have your friend turn the headlights on. Now if you don't get anything on the on position keep it in the same outlet and shut the headlights off keep doing this till you know which wire is which. I hope this is helpful to you

 

Your friend's right. Your motor is probably good. If it didn't work, your light wouldn't close. And it does.

And I think you'll find you're getting power if you test for that. Without power, the motor wouldn't work, so it couldn't close the light. But it does. So your relays are probably good, but...

It's possible to get power in one direction, but not in the other. It's not likely, but it's possible. So a relay could still be the culprit.

But you didn't say what you hear when you turn it on. Do you hear any sound from your passenger side light... a motor sound, running or spinning? If so, then you simply have a disintegrated gear, and your driver side light isn't far behind. You can get a gear rebuild kit from TDS through the link at the top of this page.

But if your motor makes no sound when turning it on, totally dead, then you've got a relay problem. It's not sending power to the motor. It might be as simple as unplugging the relay and reconnecting it, or it could be a bad relay.

You have a three relay set-up. You have one at each motor(which is probably the one in your case), but I'm not familiar with how your third(and probably primary) relay is connected.

My '87 and later models only use one relay, and wires from both motors plug into it. If your third relay is similar to that, then it could still be as simple as unplugging and reconnecting. So unfortunately, this is about as far as I can troubleshoot for you. I hope I've been some help.

 

I got an 85 and it has the big caps that spin when you turn the lights on. The passenger side wont spin or make the noise. Like I mentioned before, it does do it when i turn them off. Wheres the relay switch that i need?

 

Ok, you made me get out my repair manual to see if I can figure out the pre-'87 headlights, lol. But it's all good. I'd like to know anyway. And I think I've got it figured out, but the manual isn't clear at all, and there's no helpful pix or diagrams. So without an actual car to examine, I'm not sure, so I hope this makes sense and you can follow it.

The way I see it, the relay for each light motor assembly is built-in, inside a rectangular section on the side of the assembly below the motor/****. The book calls it a "switch." However, if that's not the individual motor's relay, then you'd find it inline to the main relay.

The main relay(isolation relay) that powers both lights is supposed to be somewhere in the front area near the coolant recovery tank, smog canister, radiator, etc.--I think you get the idea(I wish I could be more specific, but like I said, this is kind of hard without the car to look at). From the manual's description, which says "connectionS"(plural), the relay has two connectors plugged into it(one from each light motor), so that should be easy to identify. It's probably about 3"x3" and probably not far from your passenger light.

Since the motor works to go down, I'd guess it's getting power. So I'm betting it's just a poor connection. So I'd start by unplugging and replugging each connector along the way--one connector inline from the motor assembly to the isolation relay and the plug going into the isolation relay. Make sure you've got good connections--clean and tight. Turn on the lights for a test.

If that doesn't solve the problem and you have a tester, at least you'll know where the isolation relay is now, so you can test the voltage. If you've got power, then the light motor's internal relay(switch) is bad. If you get no power, then you'll know the isolation relay is bad.

There might be another way too, but I'm not sure if the plugs that go into the isolation relay are identical or a mirror-image(opposite) of each other. Actually, I think they're identical, but each probably has a "clip" that holds it in securely. Since that's gonna be on the outside of each plug, that'll make them mirror-imaged and not interchangeable. If so, you could always break that clip off to do what I'm about to suggest. Try reversing the plugs into the relay. If the relay's bad, now your driver side light won't go up. If it goes up, then you'll know the relay's good, and it's probably the internal relay in the passenger motor that's bad. But if the passenger side also works, lol, then everything's fine, and it was just the connections, and you can probably reconnect it all normal again and retry it.

Again, this is all guess-work on my part, so I'm kind of embarrassed to post this. My manual isn't clear at all, and I've never seen the set-up on a car different than mine. But I don't think I'm far off. I probably should've put all this into a PM to you, but if it turns out that this is all correct, putting it here on the boards might be helpful to others. But if I'm all wrong, lol,

 

hey man, thanks for the help.

I took the little black boxes thats are bolted to the frame of the car next to each headlight and cleaned them up a lil bit and the light wouldnt work. i crawled under the car and unplugged another on that goes in between the two headlights. I unplugged and puggled back in a lot of stuff and nothing. the light wont lift. I dont know what else to do. its a pain in the *** cause as soon as i turned them off the motor will bring the light down

 

this a the boxes i was talking about

 

Hmm, then it's gotta be the relay specific to that light or the passenger side of the main relay. If it's the main isolation relay, they're only available from the dealer, and they're very expensive. So changing out the smaller relay would be where to begin.

I have a friend who knows these cars very well. I'll give him a call tomorrow. He might even have a car that I can look at.

Also, there's a local junkyard that I've been meaning to visit that has a loaded 1985 5.0 TPI TA that I want to go back and scavenge, so when I go, I'll take a look at the lights. The motors go quickly though, but the relays might still be in place, so maybe I can at least get a look at how it was all connected.

Sorry I couldn't be more help. If I learn anything new tomorrow, I'll PM you. In the mean time, I'd think someone else on here would have some input, although I've noticed that I'm one of very few people who responds to headlight problem topics. But those are usually about 87+ models like mine. I don't usually tackle anything older. But like I said, I'm curious.

 

Ok, the pic helps very much. Thanks. At least I know what to look for now. And if that's the one that goes directly to the passenger light, then that's probably the one to replace first.

 

ok i took the car to the guy who had fixed it before and he fixed the problem in a second. the brown wire under the actual motor didnt have a good connection.

hopefully this thread will help other guys.
thanks!

 

Great. Since everything seemed to be getting power in at least one direction, I figured the relays were all good and that it had to be a connection/wire problem.

And I got to see one for myself today. I found all three relays, and I saw how they all connected. I've got the relay part numbers too. My long-winded guess above was actually pretty close. But apparently it's more accurate for '82-'84 models, which were a bit different than '85-'86 models.

The '82-'84s had the individual relays built-into the assembly units like I described above, whereas the '85 & '86 individual relays(each part number 10031246) are on the inside of the fenders next to the coolant tank and the washer tank.

The third relay, or isolation relay as it's called(part number 10038949), looks identical to the other two, and it's right next to the bottom of the radiator on the passenger side.

The plug-in connection into each relay looks like one piece, but it's actually two. So the wires go from each assembly to their inline connections, then into each individual relay, then out to the isolation relay. So the isolation relay has two coming in.

As for wire colors, they're pretty easy to see, so people will have to check their own for that. I was in a junkyard, and I wasn't exactly prepared to write things down, lol.

But hey, I found two interesting cars--a 1985 TA with an LB9(code F - block intact from the intake manifold down) that I already knew was there that I went to scavenge(that I got the light info from), and a 1985 Z28 with an L69(code G - block also intact from the intake manifold down)!!!!!!!!!!!! Not like that has anything to do with this topic, lol.

Quite often, it's not the relays or the motors that go bad. It's usually a wire or a connector. But at least the above info should help those who aren't sure where or what their relays are for their '82-'86 Firebirds. And since the relays are all easy to find and reach, at least they'll be easy to check and change if necessary.