I recently bought an 86 Trans am. The headlights were stuck up at the time of purchase. The previous owner said that they got it checked out and the problem was in the switch. I wish he would have been right. I have an 86 pontiac fiero, which has the same switch. I knew that switch worked so I tested it in the trans am. Did not help. I then tested the trans am switch in the fiero and that worked perfectly. So I know it's not the switch. My dad and I have been working on this for way too long now.

The problem: The headlights/tail lights, when turned on, immediately blow the fuse. We disconnected the motors because I have read that those can be the problem. The fuse still blew. We cleaned all of the electrical connections in the c-100. Cleaned all the relays. Checked the fusible links. Everything seems to be ok. We checked the back half of the car as well. No bare wires anywhere to be found. But everytime I try and turn on the lights (even the parking lights) the fuse blows. We are at our wits end. Help is needed!

 

Take the parking light bulbs out including license plate light and then turn parking lights on.
It could be a very corroded connection in the connector of the bulb holder,you`ll find out soon enough with the removal of the bulbs

 

Man that sucks 86TA, wish I had some good advice. Short to ground obviously somewhere I would think. Check the wire bundle up under the headlights and in front of the radiator maybe? Mine has had some corosion and caused some issues. Or possibly just not grounded correctly? That made my headlights not go up.

Now for my problem. How do you tell if the headlight motor is bad? I had the famous one light up and could not get the other up. Thought it was a bad relay so got a new one and that didn't fix it. When I plug in the relays both the lights go down? I disco'd both the relays and rotated the headlights up so I can still drive at night(cops didn't think lights down was cool) So what gives? The motor was hot while I was trying the relay thing, is this a good sign that the headlight motor is bad?

 

I'd open up the headlight control module on the engine side of the firewall and check the board inside. I'm not sure if this would cause fuses to blow if it is bad, but it's worth a look. Just take a small flathead screwdriver and pry the back off to get to the circuit board.

 

He has the 3-wire motors which were used 82-86. No headlight control module. Those were used on the 87-89 and 90-92 with a 2-wire motor.

Lon

 

Right. Good catch Lon.

 

So any ideas on why mine won't go up when I turn them on?

 

sounds like the motor is shorted internally. If it gets hot when you cycle the relay then it is getting power but something is holding it in place. If it is shorted internally (from age) then it could just be it grounding itself out inside the case.

 

Ahhh I see. Is there a way to fix this or do I need to get a new one? I priced a new one at autozone.....needless to say, I see why people drive around with one headlight up or both up all the time. $100 for a motor? Either side? WTF? You can keep it!

Does anyone have any diagrams?

 

well if it were me (im cheap) I would open it up and see if it is something obvious or easily fixed before trying to buy a new one or hunting for a used one. I did this with mine and it ended up being the contact for the motor slipped down and was touching the windings)

 

cool, I will try that, I'm cheap too. Have to do a move first so it will be a bit before I get a chance to. Just wanted to see what I could do if anything. Thanks

 

hey krazefbird: let me know how you go?
Mine is doing exactly the same at the moment, I bought new actuator relays, doesn't go down, but when i plug the relay out and back in, it does :S
I'm thinking maybe the isolation relay, but its only doing it for one headlight...
i can't find anywhere to buy the isolation relay from to eliminate it though :S

 

sure thing evil if I get that far. Getting ready for a move and my tools aren't that accessable and once we get moved not sure how much time I will have, gotta get a new job and all. For right now, I unpluged the relays and just rotated the ***** so the headlights are up. Looks retarded but oh well. Once I get to it I think I might tear apart the motors or something, not sure. Would like to come up with a way to graft them in the down position to eliminate the pop up but I think that is going to take quite a while. Anyway, I will try and let you know as soon as I can and if you don't hear from me and you fix yours, let me know what's up?

 

No worries. I'm gonna have a tinker this weekend and see what I come up with.
From memory when I was testing it with a test light the RH light harness wasn't getting +12V like the LH one was when the switch was activated, so I'm going to try splicing into the lefthand light and run the wires to the RH relay and see if that fixes it. if it does then its just a dodgy wire somewhere.

 

nothing like replying to a 15-year-old post but hey why not are you as well took apart that board with a magnifying glass look at all your solder it's old and I saw one of mine had a small crack in it only visible with the magnifying glass i took off old and resoldered the connections and it fixed my problem headlights! You know you're dealing with the right board when the label on that board says do not disassemble,