well, title says it all. yesterday I had my hood up checking coolant, oil, etc and noticed what looked like a black lump of shiny plastic stuck to the top of my drivers side lift motor spinner. i went to pick it off thinking it came from some other stuff i was working on and immediately realized the entire cap had softened and melted onto the top of the motor at some point (it was cold), with the pile on top of it being plastic that melted and bubbled up from inside. after using some pliers to rip the spinner off i was able to get the mechanism working again using a drill. Lights worked fine last time I used the car, had them on for about 2 hours on my way home from a car show about 2 days ago. They dropped when i turned the lights off and there was no noise or any indicator that the motors hadn't powered down.

first, what in the hell would cause a motor to fail like that. second, why would one motor going to hell cause the other to no longer work (it lifts once out of every 6 times i hit the switch, but won't go down)? third, why would all of this blow the fuse for my tail lights/dash?

thanks!