what would be wrong with my 1988 gta if you can just pick up the headlight and move it up and down on its own

 

Its broke.

 

yeah thanks

what I want to know is if its just a gear or do I need to find another motor

 

You need to look at it and find out. You could ask us every day of the year for 5,000yrs whats wrong, we could give u our best guesses but those are just guesses.
Look at it, move it around to see whats moving or broke.
You may need to take some stuff apart to find out if its a lever, stripped splines, gear or bushings.

 

A good way to tackle this is to remove the headlight assembly from the car so you can look at it more closely. It's 4 bolts and 2 connectors. Set it on a work bench or kitchen table right side up. Spin the motor by hand and observe while looking at the motor shaft and lift/lower arm. Report back with what you find and take some pics too.

 

Inside the headlight actuator housing is a large white nylon gear that is turned by the wormdrive of the motor. Inside the gear is a triangular-shaped cavity. In that cavite there were 3 hard gel cylindrical-shaped bushings.

Replace these old bushings with the machined Delrin bushings from a headlight repair kit and you are good to go. I make several kits that have these bushings. The TDS 207280 headlight repair kit contains the 3 bushings to repair one headlight actuator:

http://www.top-downsolutions.com/Bod...ight-motor-kit.

TDS 209280 Deluxe headlight repair kit has 6 Delrin bushings, two side cover gaskets, one motor gasket, two screws and nuts (common to snap off the heads of the screws when removing the motor from the actuator) and a packet of synthetic grease. This kit repairs two 1987-92 healdight motors:

http://www.top-downsolutions.com/Bod...ght-repair-kit

If this is the first time your headlight actuators have been replaced then these kits will be all you'll need. Both kits also include a detailed instruction sheet.

Lon Salgren