It's so great to have a knowledge source like ThirdGen.org to go to when necessary.

I'm working on the passenger side headlight motor. I have installed new actuator bushings and am ready to test the repair.

I have the electrical harnesses to both headlight motors disconnected. I don't want to reconnect the driver side yet.

If I hook up the voltage to the passenger side motor and leave the driver's side disconnected, and do some on/off testing, is there any harm that could result from that?

Thanks
GTA88

 

It won't do any harm, it's easier then disconnecting the battery.

 

McQuigg, Thanks for the reply.

For general knowledge, I was able to fix the passenger side headlight, fairly easily. The driver side was more involved, needing to remove the motor from the headight assy, and then use the famous paperclips trick to hold back the springloaded brushes when reassembling everything. But now I have both headlights flipping up and down perfectly again!!

I watched a lot of Youtube videos, and of course accessed thirdgen.org, and I owe a ton of gratitude to LonSal for his informative postings on headlight motor bushings.

I used the Ford window regulator bushings from Autozone. You get 3 for $7.99. They are soft, which is why I used them. I want to protect the rest of the unit from stress. I'll just replace the bushings again if necessary in the future, instead of the gear.

A note on the paperclip method. You can bend the 2 clips over and down the sides of the unit, while they are holding back the brushes, and grab them both with 2 fingers of one hand, pressing them against the unit, leaving the other hand available to insert the worm drive. No need for 2 people if you do it that way.

I had some trouble getting one of the paperclips back out. I had to be gentle so as not to bork anything inside the unit. Finally got the clip out after bending it back to horizontal, and moving it all around gently.

 

I've never had an issue with motor brushes when putting both the headlight motors and starter. The biggest issue I have with the headlight motors is getting the housings apart without breaking the tiny screws GM used to put the things together.

I do hope you used some 0000 grade steel wool and cleaned up the copper surface of the commutators on the motor armatures before you put them back together along with smoothing the motor brushes... Will save you other possible issues down the road by making the motors more like brand new again.

Personally, I use a single 3/8" steel ball bearing along with the chinzy nylon bushings in the gears... Next time I have to deal with my motors (if I ever get to install the headlights), I will have bigger problems than a broken set of bushings. If the gears end up getting chewed up, well, that's what they make sintered bronze gears for...

 

It literally took me 2 days of soaking one of those 2 quarter inch bolts in Liquid Wrench, and turning it every couple hours to see how far it would go. Finally did get it off safely. I def did NOT want to mess around drilling out anything. Fortunately I had the luxury of adequate time to do the soaking. I cleaned up the rust on the threads and them coated them with 3 in 1 oil before reinserting.
The 3 bolts on the cover over the bushings came out no prob.
I was able to reuse all gaskets. I did not do any maintenance to the electrical parts, except for cleaning off a copper spacer which had some black carbon(?) on it, with a q tip. Didn't steel wool anything. The copper was all clean except for that copper spacer which I cleaned off, and put a drop of 3 in 1 oil on.
I didn't go crazy with the grease like some of the Youtube videos. I put lots of white lithium grease on the nylon gear, and a dab on the ball bearing, and the seat for the ball bearing, that's it.