I had a bad head light motor a long time ago and bought a rebuild kit for it if any one has ever seen these. It replaces the plastic chewed up gear with a brass one. It worked ok for a while but now it is screwing up again. I was woundering if anyone else has used these and if they have can they tell me if I did something wrong. But most of all, I'm so sick of messing with it, whats the cheapest place to buy a new motor for the headlight. Thoe are the only reason I hate Firebirds. Thanks.

 

Some people have found that even the brass gears fail after a while because the gears don't mesh closely enough.

There really isn't an inexpensive place to get replacement motors - try eBay maybe.

 

http://rodneydickman.com/n113.html

check that stie he offers a newer rebuild kit. instead of the brass gears they are hard anodized aluminum. that is where i ordered mine from and havent had a problem with then yet. and he claims if you fix it with that gear it should outlast the car

 

It has nothing to do with the gears. After going through the same exact thing you guys have with brass gears and rebuilding them 3 times I finally figured it out. I have posted this before but I'll do it again because they can be fixed and you can use the same chewed up gear.
What it DOES have to do with is the fact that the design is **** poor. You have a metal motor attached to a plastic gear box housing with nothing more than 4 bent tabs. The tabs start to either rust a little where the black paint come off or just bend back on there own from fatigue. This allows enough play for the metal motor on top to push away from the nylon gear....OR a metal gear...and cause the grinding. If you take out your motor you'll be able to rock the motor back and forth (IT DOESN'T TAKE MUCH)...as this happens it is pulling away the worm drive from the gear.
Here's how you fix it...for good this time. I did 2 things different than BFranker...I did use the brass gears..I'd already stripped one badly. So when I took it apart AGAIN I noted the position of the "axel" that connects to the extension arm. I then rotated it 180 degrees so the damaged part was away from the worm drive. I then took a small 1/8 or slightly less thick strip of plastic about 3/4-1" long and about 1/2 an inch wide...just enough to slide behind the worm drive and the gear housing. This presses the worm drive into the gear and allows for very little if no play. If you make it too small it will come out from behind the worm drive and render it useless and could actually cause a problem so make sure it is secure. Then before replacing the cover...I used a thin washer on the gear axel. This took the play out of the side to side movement that was present. I also took a big set of pliers and bent the tabs hard against the plastic. Previously I had epoxied them with left over epoxy...this by itself did nothing to hold them in place...when I took the play out of it...the epoxy was able to hold the tabs. Mine have held for over a year now, I do alot of night driving and the car was just retired from daily duty not long ago. When you button everything up you can feel and big difference in how solid the motor feels without all the play in the gear and motor. With the worm drive now solidly pressed into the gear it won't strip. Even with nylon gears it won't strip since there is no more play. This worked very well for me after 3 rebuilds and embarassing grinding noises parking the car in public lots. Hope this helps you.