Headlight motor gears issues
Thread Starter
Joined: Feb 2011
Posts: 422
Likes: 126
From: burbs of chicago
Headlight motor gears issues So im having the dreaded stripped gear problem on the drivers side headlight on my 02 formula. This is my first 4th gen and have never experienced the problem before until tonight. Ive searched a bit and come to the conclusion that the plastic gear is worn. Ive had this car for 4 years and just out of the blue tonight i shut my car off and turned the headlights off and when they closed there was a clicking/grinding noise coming from the drivers side headlight motor which i knew right away what the issue was...however now when i lock the car or unlock it with the key fob the headlights pop up and shut on their own now. Ive tried researching this a bit here on ls1tech and nobody seems to have answered the question as to WHY this happens due to worn out plastic headlight motor gears. I dont understand the correlation between locking/unlocking the car with the fob causing the headlights to open and shut just because the headlight gear is worn out?? Can anybody answer this? Until i fix this i cant use my fob, in fear of really destroying the plastic gear. Ive read about a few fixes for it including the brass gear or rotating the plastic gear 180 degrees in the motor to a section of the gear thats less worn. What is the general consensus here? Id like to do the "hack" of just unbolting the arm from the motor and manually rotate the headlight motor without pulling the whole headlight assembly and motor out (i know its only a temporary fix) but i really dont want to take all that **** apart if i dont have to.
The old cars used to do this a lot:
Our cars try to shut the lights every time we cycle the door locks, presumably to keep the car looking pretty. (I haven't found a better theory why.) When the plastic gear is stripped, the behavior you describe happens when the locks are cycled.
Half of your plastic gear is already distroyed.
Neither of these is a 100% fix. A bad motor-to-gear case connection could be causing the problem. The metal gear also strips. Putting in new motors will give you serviceability for the plastic gears and a longer lead time before you have to deal with these again. https://ls1tech.com/forums/stereo-el...ght-doors.html
Our cars try to shut the lights every time we cycle the door locks, presumably to keep the car looking pretty. (I haven't found a better theory why.) When the plastic gear is stripped, the behavior you describe happens when the locks are cycled.
Thread Starter
Joined: Feb 2011
Posts: 422
Likes: 126
From: burbs of chicago
Does anybody even make new headlight motors for these anymore? If ive got it all apart and the motor out i think id rather just buy the brass gear kit and fix the existing motor as im sure a new motor isnt cheap. Its not a daily driver anyway so it should get me by for a while. I think ill first try rotsting the gear 180 degrees first and if that doesnt work then itll all come apart.
Thread Starter
Joined: Feb 2011
Posts: 422
Likes: 126
From: burbs of chicago
Gotcha, well i took the arm off the motor and rotated the gear 180, put it back on and it works nornally again thankfully..so if i gotta revisit this in the future ill know where to look, thanks!
TECH Resident
Joined: Apr 2007
Posts: 867
Likes: 218
From: Montgomery (Lake Conroe,) TX north of Houston
I had rotated my gear 180 degrees 2 or 3 years ago. I can't remember which headlight it was but it fixed all the weird problems and has been working 100% perfect.
Anyway, yesterday I replaced the passenger side low beam headlight on my WS6. I turned off the headlights and they went down and the dreaded grinding/"going to blow up" sound/vibration came from the passenger side headlight
. Coincidence or did I do something to cause this 
??
I had this saved in my bookmarks:
Headlight Fix for 4th Gens
I was just going to order 2 metal gears from him but then I noticed that he's out of stock and there is no date so for all I know, he's been out of stock for years. I used DuckDuckGo to search and I found these with great reviews on Amazon as of 8/18/2020:
I just ordered 2 of them.
Anyway, yesterday I replaced the passenger side low beam headlight on my WS6. I turned off the headlights and they went down and the dreaded grinding/"going to blow up" sound/vibration came from the passenger side headlight
. Coincidence or did I do something to cause this ??I had this saved in my bookmarks:
Headlight Fix for 4th Gens
I was just going to order 2 metal gears from him but then I noticed that he's out of stock and there is no date so for all I know, he's been out of stock for years. I used DuckDuckGo to search and I found these with great reviews on Amazon as of 8/18/2020:
I just ordered 2 of them.
