My Headlight Fiasco
06-25-2009, 10:55 PM
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Join Date: Feb 2009
Location: West Bend, WI
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My Headlight Fiasco In early Feb of this year (09) I picked up a 2001 Red Firehawk 6 speed for a steal of a price. It had 80,000 miles on it and was lightly modified. The car had the infamous stripped gear on the driver side when I picked it up. I have been lurking around here for quite some time and tried the temp fix....but it had already been done. So I picked up a metal gear thinking that would take car of the problem. It did for a while until the motor would work every three times I flicked the switch. One night I came home, flicked the lights off and the horrible grind came from the driver light again. I ripped it apart to find the epoxy failed, the metal tabs holding the motor were loose, and the brass gear had failed. I pounded down the metal tabs, flipped the gear around, tried a new epoxy, and put everything back together.
For about a month everything worked fine until it showed the same symptoms as before. Eventually the light would not come up at all. Doing a lil more research I thought I had two possibilities. The motor had failed or the relay had gone bad. Each part costing well over 100 bucks but I still had not ripped everything apart again. It was getting quite tedious now. So in my attempt to diagnose this problem...again I manually raised the light, flicked the light switch and turned it off. The light went down but the grinding sound was back!!!
By this point I was furious thinking the 1000 dollar conversion or a camaro was an awesome idea. So once again I ripped everything apart, the metal tabs were still tight and the housing didnt move, and the epoxy held. So wtf? I ripped the motor out and pryed the plastic cover and the metal gear had stripped on the other side but I noticed something this time. The gear was only stripped on the half outer edge meaning that the gear was not making good contact with the worm gear even with cover tightly secured. Both of the damaged areas were like this.
I put the cover back on and sure enough there was play on the shaft that connects to the arm on the headlight. It moved by a couple mm enough to prevent the gear from making 100 percent contact with the worm gear. So in my last ditch effort I went to the local hardware store and picked up a couple different sized washers. I found one that fit quite nice and allowed me to put the cover back on. The shaft didnt move anymore and I could still spin the gear with ease. So I regreased the gears and made sure there was plenty on the washer and I ziptied the cover back together. Now that the gear is making full contact with the worm gear, the remaining surface area of the stripped teeth is enough to move the light without a problem. Now I am assuming this is not a permanent fix but thought I would share my story. I dont remember what size washer I used. Thanks for listening and any input would be great.
For about a month everything worked fine until it showed the same symptoms as before. Eventually the light would not come up at all. Doing a lil more research I thought I had two possibilities. The motor had failed or the relay had gone bad. Each part costing well over 100 bucks but I still had not ripped everything apart again. It was getting quite tedious now. So in my attempt to diagnose this problem...again I manually raised the light, flicked the light switch and turned it off. The light went down but the grinding sound was back!!!
By this point I was furious thinking the 1000 dollar conversion or a camaro was an awesome idea. So once again I ripped everything apart, the metal tabs were still tight and the housing didnt move, and the epoxy held. So wtf? I ripped the motor out and pryed the plastic cover and the metal gear had stripped on the other side but I noticed something this time. The gear was only stripped on the half outer edge meaning that the gear was not making good contact with the worm gear even with cover tightly secured. Both of the damaged areas were like this. I put the cover back on and sure enough there was play on the shaft that connects to the arm on the headlight. It moved by a couple mm enough to prevent the gear from making 100 percent contact with the worm gear. So in my last ditch effort I went to the local hardware store and picked up a couple different sized washers. I found one that fit quite nice and allowed me to put the cover back on. The shaft didnt move anymore and I could still spin the gear with ease. So I regreased the gears and made sure there was plenty on the washer and I ziptied the cover back together. Now that the gear is making full contact with the worm gear, the remaining surface area of the stripped teeth is enough to move the light without a problem. Now I am assuming this is not a permanent fix but thought I would share my story. I dont remember what size washer I used. Thanks for listening and any input would be great.
