Hi there,
this is my first post. I think you have a cool forum here.

I have a firebird 91 and when I turn the headlight switch on and off it happens that the driver's headlight seems to slip and keeps on working for some time once it is at the end of its way. It also happens when I disconnect the battery. I went on vacation and I disconnected the ground wire of the battery. When I came back and I connected it again I could hear the electric actuator of the headlight running for some time. Do you know what is that about?.

Moreover, the headlights switch has two parts, one for the main headlights and another for the parking lights (the smallest switch). Turns out that when I turn on the smallest one everything comes out included the main headlights. How's that?.

The last thing happening has to do with the alarm. When I switch on the alarm the headlights go up and down (draining battery of course). Could I get rid of that?.

Thanks!.

 

You'll need to replace the bushings inside the gear. Either the TDS 207280 or 209280 headlight repair kits will solve the problem. Just click on the link over there----------------->

The kits are listed under the electrical section. You can download the instructions for the 209280 kit to see what the repair involves.

Lon Salgren
Top-Down Solutions

 

Thanks.

You missed the link though!.

Is it not the gear istelf that is worn and slips when spinning?.

 

The later flip up headlight assemblies use some gel filled bushings to transfer power from the motor/gears to the actual arm that lifts the headlights, they give the assembly a little give so the nylon gear isn’t stripped, but eventually the stock ones dry out and get pulverized into a powder.

I used to use short lengths of appropriate sized fuel injection hose with a wood dowel inside it to replace them (the dowel is just to make it a little more rigid), but the last time I decided to go to the hardware store and get some nylon/durlin spacers, I think they cost me $.15 each....

They need to be a ½” in diameter and slightly less then a ½” in length. They’re available in all sorts of lengths, I chose the next longer size and trimmed them down to exactly the right length, but if I were to do it again I’d probably get whatever the closest shorter length is, like 3/8”, it will work fine. I also chose the ones with the biggest hole to have the most give/cushioning.

The fact is that anything durable that has some little bit of give will work, I know that the hose/dowel ones were in the car for 6 years and still work fine, I suspect that the nylon ones will last pretty much forever.

Check out the attachment, the one on the left is a stock one (or replacement, it was the only one out of 4 headlight assemblies that I had that didn’t come out as pulverized powder), the 2 on the right are just the hardware store nylon spacers before cutting them down.