General Maintenance & Repairs - After closing headlights motor started to go crazy

Yesterday this suddenly started - after I switch off the lights (and close headlights), right side motor starts going crazy - buzzes and hits and tries to rotate for a few seconds. Today when I pressed button on the remote to lock the car it also did this action for 3-4 seconds. What could be the problem?

check your grounds

ummmm..........plastic gear stripped? and your the 1st person this has ever happened to :P

Turned out that also when I put light switch into "Parking light", it pops up the headlights too :) So I hope that's something electrical and not plastic gear :) Any ideas (besides grounds)? :)

Its the gear. Best bet order a set of the copper replacement gears and replace the plastic gears in both motors and be done with it

they are not copper....brass

I'll recheck all my bulbs and connections - there must be a reason why it pops up the lights when I just switch into Parking, and when I arm/disarm the alarm...

Thats what these headlights do when the gears strip ive had an 02 and a 98 trans am and have replaced motor gears 4 times because of these exact symptoms when i locked and unlocked the car the lights would come up and go right back down make a horrible grinding banging noise because the motor was still turning the gear because since it was stripped the motor had no way of knowing when the light was fully down. And when i turned the switch to turn on just the driving lights the headlights came up but the headlights themselves were not on. And the second i replaced the gear the problem went away and didnt happen again

^Yup. Both my '96 and '98 had this issue.

Damn... It would suck if it's the gear (anyone has part number maybe?)
It just doesn't make sense to me how parking lights pop up the headlights when the gear strips down...

http://www.hawksthirdgenparts.com/headlightrepairkit-93-2002firebirdtransamformulaalso2004-05corvettes.aspx

When one of the headlight gears goes bad, the motor continues to run a few seconds after to headlight door closes because there is not "stop" detected. That stop is what signals the headlight control module to switch power off to that motor (the stop causes the motor to increase current momentarily which the control module detects). Power to the motor does turn off after a few seconds of run-on due to some other timing circuit is my assumption.

So when no stop is detected, the headlight control module becomes confused. The headlight switch provides the CLOSE signal to the headlight control module only when the switch is OFF, so if the control module is confused, turning the switch to PARKING removes the OFF signal and the control module uses that as if the headlights were previously ON (i.e. keeps them raised)

Your problem IS the gear, but new gears don't always work. If you are in Latvia, you may have a better time and faster resolution by replacing the entire motor.

If you have to wait for gears to be shipped to you and they don't fix the problem, (some times the motor becomes detached from the gear body, which strips the gear) then it will take you longer to fix while you wait to get a motor.

You can go to advanced or auto zone to get the gears usually within a day or so same goes for a motor and either way you win by ordering gears. Buy the gears if they fix the problem then your in good shape and if they dont then you order new motors and replace the plastic gears in the new motors and you wont have to worry about this happening again. And if gears fix it youre looking at 90 bucks for the 2 repair kits vs over 400 bucks for a pair of new motors. If i were you id go ahead and buy the gears now and see if that solves your problem. Like i said a local chevy dealer or parts house can have the motors or the gears in a matter of a few days tops. The last time i ordered a headlight motor i went at around 9 that morning to the chevy dealer ordered the motor and they called me same day before they closed to tell me it was just delivered. But even if you go with new motors i would still get the gears because if you dont chances are later down the road youre gonna have a repeat of this issue

Is DORMAN 42400 the gear I need? It's only 11$. I don't need it to last forever as I barely put 2000 miles a year on my T/A

Yes that is a plastic gear like what these motors already have in them and will fit. It will probably fix your problem as long as the gear hasnt seperated from the motor housiing like stated earlier. Its up to you but regardless of how much the car gets driven id replace it with the brass ones and be done with it for good but to answer your question yes the DORMAN 42400 will work

I just cannot understand how the hell can you design electrical system in such a way that when gears on one of the motors go bad, it starts flipping headlights every possible moment... I've searched a bit and found you can turn plastic gear and it might fix the problem temporarily, I'm gonna try that so my car doesn't act like $300 worth piece of sh*t for the 2 weeks while I'm waiting for the gear...

Found this and it explains everything perfectly...
http://www.bfranker.badz28.com/headlightfix/index.htm

OP has seen the light......welcome to the club

BTW......i prefer the rodney dickman brass gears over that other guy.......they have a rubber bumper in the kit........the other guy does not

Spent whole evening trying to fix this thing... In the end I probably put the motor contacts back the wrong way so now when it needs to close it opens and vice versa :) Also the cap of the motor fell off quickly after assembling so I need to find some better epoxy to glue it to the motor body...
sjsingle, which are rodney dickman gears?

Yesterday this suddenly started - after I switch off the lights (and close headlights), right side motor starts going crazy - buzzes and hits and tries to rotate for a few seconds. Today when I pressed button on the remote to lock the car it also did this action for 3-4 seconds. What could be the problem?

Means you have to rebuild them. I have done a few in my day. It's not hard. order the kits off of ebay.

do a google search for rodney dickman brass gears and you will find it

OK found them...
Yes it's not hard but time consuming, trying to get those tiny springs and rotor back...
I just don't know what to use to glue the cap back, the adhesive I used didn't hold at all

I just cannot understand how the hell can you design electrical system in such a way that when gears on one of the motors go bad, it starts flipping headlights every possible moment...

If you had seen cars with flip-up headlight doors in the 70's, you would understand. They would easily fall out of adjustment and you'd get one light "winking" and not shut all the way.

It looks to me that our cars energize the doors at various points (locking the car, turning lights on, etc.) to make sure they are shut all the way. This obviously stresses the motor and gears when they are in the fully shut position and the motor is pressing them down more.

If you dig in to all the threads on this, you'll see that the problem isn't so much bad gears, but the motor separating from the gearbox. This puts the stress on the outer edges of the gear teeth, where they are weaker.


I just don't know what to use to glue the cap back, the adhesive I used didn't hold at all

Before getting in to metal gears, I'd suggest reading this thread. I'll also echo that the Dickman gears are probably a better choice. (I got the other type.) http://ls1tech.com/forums/stereo-electronics/1418038-better-approach-firebird-headlight-doors.html

Just so the OP knows the brass gear can still get stripped. A couple months after I installed the brass gear in my drivers side headlight, it got chewed away also.
-Joel

my brass gears have been goin 2+ yrs

The easiest solution is to pull the 2 headlight door fuses under the hood and just use the fog lights. I've been doing that for 2 years.

yeah but a) I don't have foglights since I went turbo b) I have to pass inspection right now :))
Anyway at his moment they work OK, found position of gear when they are OK. And I'll be ordering new gears soon.

Hey Vetal, check your PM, sent you a link to a company

Hey to the "neighbour"! :) Thanks for that

my gear house broke open, the headlight is not closing all the way, so the car will try to move the healights as much as possible to try to close all the way. i fixed mine and they stopped. temp fix to stop damage is to put lights up and yank fuses leaving them permanently up until you fix it!

P.S. I also had to put a steel tab in the back to press cap against the motor body. I hope the cap is still there )