General Maintenance & Repairs - Headlight Replacement Issues

My headlight motor went out about 8 months ago and I took it all apart and intended to replace it but I neglected it and the car sat at my parents house under a carport. Well now i have a house with a garage and have been working on the car and today got my new A1 cardone headlight from rock auto and went to replace and when I hooked up the motor to the harness and had my girlfriend turn the knob nothing happened. The lights work so I dont think its the harness, does anyone have any ideas? I already checked the fuse but im out of ideas.

bump...need help on this one

Did you check for corrosion inside the connector before you hooked up the new motor. This is very common and you may need to clean the terminals before they will make contact with the one on the new motor.

Well I noticed that one of the 5 terminals looked different than the others. If the connector is corroded, would the lights still work becasue they do.

I have an issue with my drivers side headlamp also, it comes on but doesn't raise. I gently pull up on it or lift hood and tap the motor or linkage and it works fine, mostly just the lift up gently. Only happens after rain or washing the car, but not solely...I'm interested in seeing what others have to say and what the fix is.

Well I noticed that one of the 5 terminals looked different than the others. If the connector is corroded, would the lights still work becasue they do.

It depends on the terminal. Two are for the motor, one is the headlight ground and the other two are for the low beam and high beam. If your bad terminal is for the motor, it won't work.

Yeah I looked closer at the connector and the two terminals for the motor itself were pretty bad looking while the three for the lights were fine which explains why the lights were coming on but I wasn't getting a response from the motor. Thanks for your help man.

If they are the male terminals, you can remove them from the connector and polish them up.

If it doesn't work from cleaning the ends you can just either get a new connector or bypass it with some self tapping connectors on both sides of the corroded one. All from the local auto store. I had corrosion and the male connectors broke off. Lights work motor didn't. I bypassed it and haven't had a single issue since

I also had some that were beyond saving but was able to crimp on new terminals.