I installed sequential taillights in the bird about a weekend ago and went outside lastnight to installed leds in the backup lights and changed a couple of bulbs in my taillights to 3157s. Well When I pulled my Drivers side center light out (It was a faint light and then it faded out). My Hazards were on just so I could do some final adjustments on the lights. So I changed it to another light bulb and it lite up fine but then faded out. So it was late and I said *** it I;ll mess with it in the morning. Well I come out to the car this morning and hit the unlock button on my remote and my head lights pop up as my car unlocks and then go back down and makes a grinding noise on the passenger side headlight kinda like the headlight motor is dieing but its fine, so I said "WTF?". I open my door and turn on my parking lights and my headlights pop up . Turn off my park lights and they go down with the same grinding noise and god is it loud. I lock my car and the pop up and then go back down as my car beeps and locks. If I hit something in the taillights to accidently cause a wire to get grounded. How do I fix it? Do I unplug the battery for a while?


I really hope someone has an idea and can Help!!!!!

 

The pop up healight symptom usually means that the gear on the headlight motor is going out.
But since you made some changes to the bulbs in the back it might have something to do with it.

 

If you have the alarm wired to have your parking lights blink when activated or deactivated it's the headlight motor that is the culprit. Check to see if you pinched any wires when you took your tailights out to change the bulbs. Had same prob. with bulb burnout. Found wire was damaged.

 

Yea Its the factory wired alarm from the factory where the parking lights blink when locking or unlocking. So Both headlights would pop up when unlocking and locking from a pinched wire in the taillight? I sure hope so. I unplug the battery and replug and the motor makes a grinding noise. I'll have to check all the wires later this week to make sure. Thanks man and wish me luck..lol

 

Check out this sticky:
https://ls1tech.com/forums/pontiac-firebird-1967-2002/177470-firebird-headlights-all-comments-questions-regarding-headlights-go-here.html

 

One of your headlight motors has a stripped gear. The 2 problems are not related. It was just coincidence that they happened about the same time. It will happen when you lock the car and walk away they will pop up again and make the grrrrr noise. The 180 fix works for awhile if you don't do much night driving or the car is not a daily driver. Otherwise you need a new motor or a new brass gear. There's more to it though then just the brass gear. The electric motor actually moves which pulls the metal worm drive inside the housing away from the nylon gear and strips it. They ALL do this and if you own a T/A it WILL happen eventually. The reason the motor moves is because it is held in place by 4 bent tabs that eventually rust and work there way loose. They are bent around the plastic gear housing and when you take yours out look at it. The metal tabs will either be a little or a lot loose allowing the two pieces to move a little. That's what stripped the gear. If your not into the do-it-yourself stuff...just buy another motor. If so, Get one of Brent Frankers brass gears follow the directions until you get ready to close the housing back up. At this point get a small rectangular piece of plastic(I cut mine out of a nylon guitar pick) less than 1/8" thick, 1" long, and about 1/2" wide. Insert this between the metal worm drive and the housing so that it presses the worm drive into the gear firmly. I also for good measure put a small thin washer on the end of the gear shaft. These 2 things extra that I did made it so there was NO play between the motor and gear. I then made sure to bend the tabs tightly around the gear housing and put any remaining epoxy from closing it back up on the tabs. These couple extra steps have kept me from having to do this again. I actually stripped a brass gear because the housing kept moving when I did not do these extra steps. I also do ALOT of night driving and have for years so I constantly used the headlights. My car was just now retired from daily duty.

 

I barely have my headlights up and hardly drive at night I always drive the hoe to and from the stores etc never drive the bird its been that way for years. So it seems weird for my motor to go bad instantly because I never drive it really.

But you said my headlights will popup when unlocking and locking my car with the remote because the headlight motor is going bad correct? So they would still pop up even if I just turn my **** once to parking lights? If it is infact a bad motor where should I go to get a new one and whats a new one cost? because I really dont want to mess with the gears and stuff. Some people say dont do advanced auto or autozone but I just want something done for the time being.


Is this a good price for the motor? Item number: 150130822065
http://cgi.ebay.com/ebaymotors/Trans...QQcmdZViewItem


I went ahead and bought that motor. It seemed like a good deal and its a GM part and the guy said I would get it before friday so will see.. I saw on yearone it was 166.00.
How hard is it to change, Any write ups?

 

The thread that VIP1 linked should answer your questions. You should be able to fix it (at least for a while) with out having to replace the motor.

 

Not hard to change it out. Here's the guide and the video on how to do it on a fourth gen: http://www.bfranker.badz28.com/headl...tm#MetalGuide2

 

good deal thanks man