My headlights don't come up unless I tap on the headlight control module, and I can't seem to find it on autozone's or oreilly's website. Is it possible to rebuild these? Or is there anywhere locally I could get one? The only place I can find that sells them is top down solutions, and I was hoping to get the car inspected thursday.

 

You could always put them up, disconnect the motor to lift/lower them. Just to pass inspection.

As long as they stay up, you'll pass that part. Now if you were to turn them on, & they wouldn't come up? You'd fail. But they won't care if they are now "locked" into the up position. Just unplug the motor & they are "locked up". Plug it back in after you get home.

But no. Nobody local has them. You MIGHT find am electrical guy willing to look at the module, but TDS is the only place I know of that routinely does them.


Your problem is also why I kept the spare one I got!

 

Hah, you know I didn't even think of rigging the headlights to stay up, to pass inspection. My dad is an electrical engineer, so he could probably take a look at it. If it's something obvious like a bad solder joint or loose connection, I can probably fix that. I guess tomorrow I'll pull it off and see what I can do with it, if I can't fix it I'll ghetto-rig the lights to stay up. Thanks for the info!

 

No ghetto-rigging needed. Get them to go up, the unplug the motors, turn the lights off & they'll stay up!

If you can't get them to go up by the tapping (been there, done that), use the manual **** on top of the motors. That's why the **** is there. For motor failure, yet you can still get them up & down.

For that matter, the manual method SHOULD still allow you to pass. Nothing says it can't be manual & has to be electric.

 

I'd agree, it does sound like a bad solder point or something.
Also, there is a relay in the HDM, I believe. If the contacts are a little charred, that might cause the bad connection too.

Resoldering most of the joints should do the trick. If not, I'm sure your dad can troubleshoot it, it's a very simple circuit.

Keep us posted!
Lou

 

Well I pulled it off today, and had my dad look at it. A couple of the solder joints on the connector pins looked iffy, so we re-soldered them. The relay contacts looked a little burned too, we cleaned them as best we could with an x-acto knife. It seems to be working again, but I don't know for how long. I'm betting that the relay contacts were the problem, but it doesn't look too hard to replace the relay. That is, assuming I could find another one somewhere.

 

 

I took a piece of sandpaper, cut into a 1/8"-1/4" wide strip & slid it between the contacts & sanded the contact surfaces, sliding the paper back & forth. Flipped the sandpaper over & did the opposite contact. Might have been able to double the paper over & sand both together, didn't try though.

 

Well, it sort of worked. The passenger side headlight comes up every time, but the driver side sometimes doesn't. If I tap on the headlight module, it comes up. I think I'll try pulling it apart again, and trying the sandpaper method on the relay contacts. It looks like the relay has four contacts, two for each headlight motor (up and down). I guess the driver side "up" contact didn't get cleaned good enough.

 

Does anyone have pics of the relay or can point me to where it is? Mine don't come up either once in awhile and I don't hear a motor turning so I'm thinking it isn't a bushing issue.

 

On the firewall, just left (looking into the engine bay) of the brake booster.

There are 2 versions:
86-89 http://www.top-downsolutions.com/hea...d54b1351c76b4f

&

90-92
http://www.top-downsolutions.com/hea...d54b1351c76b4f