Tiger03447

Well after many hours of frustrating work, getting the springs on the headlight linkage in the correct positions (I had them reversed). I fianaly got the little triangular plates installed and all seems good with no hitting on anything. So I hook up my new(to me) headlight motor, and it sometimes refuses to shut off or "park"..the lights go up and down continually. I shut them off and they close. Then I hit the switch again, and they pop up and stay upright in the proper position..Rather than keeping the neighbor kids entertained. It does this randomly . Sometimes it works OK. What is up with this ? I'm thinking it may be a bad headlight relay..Any help would be appreciated...TIA.

orig944

Check the brown wire from the motor to ground. Make sure it is making good contact.

huskeric

I had the same problem... the relay checked out fine (which you need to examine first) and it turned out to be a bad motor.
You can take the motor apart (pretty easy) and clean the metal plate that contacts the electrical 'fingers'.
Also, you mentioned "new (to me)" - is the other motor still around to check?

GPA951s

I had that happen to me after i came home from a bar… thought it was hysterically funny… once the headlights were down i held them down with my hand.. and they stayed.. that was even funnier… of course this was years ago .. hasn't happened ever again..

pfarah7

Hi Rich,
Because you mentioned that it sometimes works fine, this would lend me to think that the relay or headlight switch may be the culprit. Hook up your volt meter on the connector and cycle the headlight switch a few times to see if there are any irregularities with the source voltage. Also, fiddle with the high beam lever if the headlights continually cycle; I am still leaning toward an issue with that assembly, based on the crazy marker light issue we were experiencing last weekend. I still have another headlight motor if you're convinced that the problem lies with the motor.

Patrick

orig944

Check the brown wire. If it's not that, replace the relay. If it's not that, it's the motor. Priced from low to high.

Tiger03447

Thanks guys for the tips! No, the old motor with a broken shaft went to the trash yesterday...I'll check the wiring on the motor, that's underneath the lower rubber boot and check for corrosion on those contacts as well. It's intermittent, so it might be something as simple as a loose wire..After all the hell I've had with these headlights, I won't risk anything that's going to screw up the linkages. I don't mind removing the motor, as that's pretty straightforward, The lights all light up, and I now have the reverse lights working as well..loose bolt on the shift linkage cured that. Got lucky. Thanks again..I'll check the grounds (brown wire) and see what's up. I think that the switch is OK. It works well on all other positions. Looks like it's going to be a turn signal switch investigation soon. Thanks again for the info..

931guru

Lesson... never throw away the old part until you are sure that the new part works.

Breakaway944

I was having intermittent problems with my headlights, do not remember exactly what it was. I was able to trace it down to the plug. The flat plug (this is on later cars, do not know about earlier cars) coming from the body harness ended up being the problem. If you look inside the plug the first connector (they are kinda like bullet connectors) was all deformed and making intermittent contact (red/blue wire, did not look it up but it must be a power wire). I picked up a used plug. It had the same problem. I have never seen this problem in any plug, to see it in two plugs says to me that there is a problem there. I finally got a good plug that I have to put in. As a temp fix I de-pinned another plug with the same type connector, and spliced in the one wire with the bad connector. When I did this I forgot to put the rubber boot back on. Now that I have a new plug I can put the rubber boot back on when I change it!

87944turbo

SamGrant951

^ hahaha