Headlight motor stuck down

[00firebird]

If anyone can help share a picture of how their 98-02 PASSENGER headlight assembly lever is connected to the motor it would be really helpful. If you read my last thread, I ended up replacing the main electrical connector and headlight motor on the pass side. The new motor and headlights are both working now, but the headlight physically gets stuck now when opening. When I repositioned the lever, I put it between the two stops you see below. I'm not sure if this is right, but it seems like it. When it gets hung up during opening, it seems to stop itself on the frame where I've put the arrow. I never had this issue on the old one, perhaps I over-tightened everything but and left less space for clearance. If someone can verify this is the correct place for the lever, then I will hack out some of the frame area.



Lever touches top of bottom stop while headlight is up.
I had to manually raise it up to get it like this in the picture. Otherwise it doesn't pass clearance on its own when it hits the farme and stops.

[00firebird]

Today I drilled out the part of the frame that looked like it was hitting the swing arm. Big suprise, it didn't correct my problem. Not sure what the next step is here. Maybe I have the arm on wrong still? Can someone verify it is facing the right way?

Here's a video of what it does when trying to go up. It just stops.

[NullHead]

These aren't similar to thirdgen lights are they? Cause I can get you pictures/video of mine if you like.

[00firebird]

New video, replaced the entire headlight motor and electrical connector. Still having this stupid problem. At first they were going in opposite directions, one up and one down. After messing around with it and turning the manual knob- now i have this problem.

[92conv]

I can't watch the video here at work, but I'll check it from home tonight. This system isn't really that complicated, you say you replaced the motor was that with a rebuilt one or a new one? Is the motor mounted tighly? Meaning when it's in the down position is there any play in it? Can it be moved back and forth by hand? There shouldn't be any movement in the motor when mounted.

[NullHead]

Can't wait it here either,

[92conv]

Here's a shot of what mine look like when the headlight is down. I couldn't tell exactly by your video, but it looks like your acuator rods are not lined up like they should be. Can you confirm that thought? When your headlight is down do both of the rods run basically parallel with one another? The pivot point should be pointing towards the ground.

[92conv]

I just watched your video again, and I think I see that you have a bolt installed backwards. In your video/pictures I see a nut and threads, where there should only be a bolt head (as viewed in my pictures)..............It appears in the video that your actuator rod is binding on the end of the bolt, not allowing the headlight to fully open. I think you need to turn that bolt (I've circled it in blue, below) around to give proper clearance.

[00firebird]

To answer the earlier questions everything is mounted and tightened properly. Very nice find there Scott. The actuator bar is going the same direction as yours when down, as well. I've reversed the motor bolts, but suprisingly this didn't fix it. I had manually raised the headlight while working on it using the top-mount knob, and suprisingly it didn't go down the first time I hit the switch. It seemed stuck again like in the above video, but this time it was stuck open. Tried it a few more times, the next time I had the camera going again, and this time it slammed shut again like usual. It then remained stuck in the down position again. I'm at a loss with this thing.

It seems like I can manually raise the headlight using the knob on top. There doesn't seem anything stuck in it's path. It almost seems like it doesn't have the power to lift the thing. But this has been the exact same problem on two replacement motors now, both of which were brand new so I'm not ready to call this motor junk again as well. Maybe ACDelco is the only possbile part to get for these things? Or maybe I'm just overlooking something still.

[DynoDave]

Let me preface this comment by saying, "I don't know nothin' ".

That said...those things sure seem to move around a LOT. Mine (3rd gen) move in a very "linear" fashion, no excessive movement, no "flopping" around when closing. Those seem to move around an awful lot.

Don't know what that means, or if it's relevant. But if they are worn or loose at their pivot points, and it's binding, then maybe...?

[92conv]

Strange.

Here's what I know about the motors. They have a large plastic gear inside them, it doesn't take much to strip that gear out. Any amount of play in the motor, or if there's something blocking their way it will lead to a stripped gear. The true fix for this is to go with a brass gear.


Here's the good news though. The system only uses half the gear.........So that means there's an easy way to tell if your gear is stripped again. Disconnect the acuator arm, using the manual knob, rotate the mounting rod on the motor 180 degrees. Reattach acuator arm. If it works then you know the problem.