I made sure I searched before I posted this, and I didn't find anything, so here it goes. First of all, I’m not trying to undermine your business lonsal, just trying to share my knowledge of fixing the firebird headlight motors with stuff lying around the house.

What you'll need:
-About 6 inches of ½” OD rubber hose (I used ¼” fuel line)
-White lithium grease

First you’ll obviously need to remove the headlight motor from your car. The easiest way of doing this is as follows:

1) Raise the headlights
2) Unplug the headlight motor
3) Lower the headlights. This will turn off the lights, leaving the one headlight you unplugged up.
4) Remove the black headlight cover
5) With a 10mm wrench, unbolt the arm from the motor
6) Unbolt the 3 bolts holding the motor to the car (tip, get the 3rd / lowest bolt from the bottom, very hard to do from the top)


You will want to do the following over a garbage can or outside. Now you need to take apart the headlight motor. What causes your headlight motor to make that clicking sound / not go up is the bearings inside the motor disintegrate.

**NOTE** BE VERY CAREFUL WHEN REMOVING THE SCREWS THAT HOLD THE HEADLIGHT MOTOR COVER ON. THE SCREWS ARE STEEL AND THE MOTOR IS ALUMINIUM SO THE SCREWS CAN BREAK VERY EASY. IF YOU BREAK A SCREW, YOU WILL HAVE TO DRILL IT OUT FROM THE BOTTOM ** END NOTE **

When you open the headlight motor (see picture below) get all the powder out of the inside. Take a rag and clean up all the parts very nice. When you remove the gear from the metal spindle, you will notice more dust inside of that. In the three circular openings is where the bearings use to be.

Take the 1/2 inch tubing, place it into one of the circular openings, and mark on the tube level with the top of the gear. Now cut 3 pieces this length. Place the 3 pieces of tube into the gear, and put it and the metal spindle together.

** NOTE ** DO NOT PUT ANY GREASE IN BETWEEN THE GEAR AND THE METAL SPINDLE WHERE THE RUBBER HOSE GOES ** END NOTE **

Now open up your grease, put some on the outside of the gear, on the washers, in the hole where the metal spindle goes, on the worm gear (inside) that turns the motor, and a little around the perimeter. Now put everything back together and put the motor back into your car, and test it.

Questions and comments welcome.

 

Nice write-up cooltc!

 

One could just order the repiar kit from lon as well.. http://www.top-downsolutions.com/pro...6523cd205a58c3
Instructions included... http://www.top-downsolutions.com/Doc...dbb7001794c68e

 

Burst the guy's bubble then.
Only joking, I bet most people on here know about TDS products, but it's great to see a write up from "the guy in the street" as it were.
Read cooltc's first paragraph re: Lon
Mark.

 

Unbelievable!

This needs to be a tech article, Just did exactly as cooltc said and worked flawless! With the exception I used 5/16 fuel hose as I had no 1/4 in sight.

Thanks for the great find and saving me and I am sure many other thirdgen owners money.

Just an added tip, Be careful when unbolting the motor housing that you do not pull armature to far out as brushes and springs will fly! Opps!!

But I just cut a spring from a pen in half and and works great!

Driverside required that I losen motor, passenger did not.

 

you can also buy a window motor repair kit for a ford p/w. they used plastic *****(aka-gear package) from the mid 80s to mid90s. you can get 'em at any parts store for 3or 4 bucks.

 

I fixed mine in 5 minutes (both) with a kit from ebay that cost $8 Works great until this day! But be careful with them damn screws that hold in the motor, they dont come out easy, they break easy, and be sure to use antisiese when putting the bolts back in. it will make life alot easier in the future.