One of my headlight motors has a stripped gear so I'm replacing it with a gear from another fiero that's still good but is the wrong side though the internal gear is the same.
What sort of grease should I pack this with and what should I use to seal it?

Buddy Craig has great video's covering the gen 1 headlight rebuild, I'm sure he references what grease to use in the videos.
Hope this helps

Buddy Craig Headlight Motor Rbld

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"Because in a split second, It's gone"
Ayrton Senna

The only differences in the left and right Generation 2 motor is the cross shaft that the large plastic gear is mounted on. The shaft is specific to right or left motors. You can remove the metal plate from the end of the shaft and put the gear onto the shaft of the opposite side motor.

When you separate the motor case, note the orientation of the motor stator. If it's opened for the first time, it will usually have a spot of white latex sealant on the shiny metal housing or it may come off on the inside of the thinner half of the case. Mark the stator by scribing an X on it since magic markers may wipe off during cleaning.

Remove EVERY BIT of old grease and bump stops from inside the case. Use an old dental pick to get it out of the teeth of the small gear. You will need to find your own method of getting the gears off and reinstalled so that the metal drive plate will stay on the shaft. You want to be very careful about damaging the threads of the shaft. Keep the nut screwed on and flush with the top of the shaft threads.

If you're swapping out old gears, you will have a problem with bump stops. Some have used pieces of threaded rod, packed the cavities with J&B Weld and RTV Sealant. Bumpstops that are too soft will give you problems with the motor failing to turn off at the end of travel and bumpstops too hard will either cause the drive plate to come off the shaft or break the four fingers of the plate.

You would be best to order a gear kit from one of the Fiero vendors. The Fiero Store again offers a rebuild kit with everything you need. They had some problems with quality control and pulled them off the market twice. Hopefully they've gotten them corrected this time. Rodney Dickman also sells a metal gear rebuild which in my opinion is superior in design and ease of use over that offered by The Fiero Store. Again, my opinion, only. I've not read any complaints about his metal gear kit.

When reassembling, fill the teeth of the small and large gear with Syl-Glyde High Temperature Synthetic Slider Grease. It won't harm plastic if you use plastic gears. Put a tiny stream of RTV in the groove of the case half and reassemble. Be sure that the rubber weather D seal at the top of the motor is in it's position inside the case.

Be very careful to not snag the brushes of the limiter switch in the notches of the commutator when reinstalling the limiter. They are old and pop off easily.

If you prefer, I rebuild with the gear of your choice. you can have it drop shipped to me to arrive at the same time your motor arrives. $30 labor plus return shipping. If I order your gear, add that to the price without any markup.

[This message has been edited by fierofool (edited 03-20-2015).]

quote Originally posted by fierofool: The only differences in the left and right Generation 2 motor is the cross shaft that the large plastic gear is mounted on. The shaft is specific to right or left motors. You can remove the metal plate from the end of the shaft and put the gear onto the shaft of the opposite side motor. When you separate the motor case, note the orientation of the motor stator. If it's opened for the first time, it will usually have a spot of white latex sealant on the shiny metal housing or it may come off on the inside of the thinner half of the case. Mark the stator by scribing an X on it since magic markers may wipe off during cleaning. Remove EVERY BIT of old grease and bump stops from inside the case. Use an old dental pick to get it out of the teeth of the small gear. You will need to find your own method of getting the gears off and reinstalled so that the metal drive plate will stay on the shaft. You want to be very careful about damaging the threads of the shaft. Keep the nut screwed on and flush with the top of the shaft threads. If you're swapping out old gears, you will have a problem with bump stops. Some have used pieces of threaded rod, packed the cavities with J&B Weld and RTV Sealant. Bumpstops that are too soft will give you problems with the motor failing to turn off at the end of travel and bumpstops too hard will either cause the drive plate to come off the shaft or break the four fingers of the plate. You would be best to order a gear kit from one of the Fiero vendors. The Fiero Store again offers a rebuild kit with everything you need. They had some problems with quality control and pulled them off the market twice. Hopefully they've gotten them corrected this time. Rodney Dickman also sells a metal gear rebuild which in my opinion is superior in design and ease of use over that offered by The Fiero Store. Again, my opinion, only. I've not read any complaints about his metal gear kit. When reassembling, fill the teeth of the small and large gear with Syl-Glyde High Temperature Synthetic Slider Grease. It won't harm plastic if you use plastic gears. Put a tiny stream of RTV in the groove of the case half and reassemble. Be sure that the rubber weather D seal at the top of the motor is in it's position inside the case. Be very careful to not snag the brushes of the limiter switch in the notches of the commutator when reinstalling the limiter. They are old and pop off easily. If you prefer, I rebuild with the gear of your choice. you can have it drop shipped to me to arrive at the same time your motor arrives. $30 labor plus return shipping. If I order your gear, add that to the price without any markup.

I wished that I had seen your note sooner. I already pulled the nylon gear from the good motor (driver's side) and put it in my passenger's side motor. I didn't mark the stator (not sure what the stator is) so I'm not sure if I put it in correctly.
I plugged it all in and it's acting really goofy.
As soon as you plug it in the headlight goes up and won't go down unless you unplug the blue wire and turn the light switch on. The motor moves the carriage just fine but when it's in the final position, it's like it checks itself and you see the rotating knob bump then pause then bump then pause and so on. Something is not wired right. Before I ever messed with it the headlights did work somewhat properly until that passengers side one would hit the wear spot on the gear and would then just sit and spin.
I'm really confused as to what to do at this point. If there were some sort of rubber or plastic bump stops inside of that motor I don't see them in there now and I didn't put any bump stops in there. I just re-assembled what I saw in there. There was a lot of greenish gritty stuff in there though

[This message has been edited by chrislayton (edited 03-20-2015).]

Ok, so it looks like I had the motor flipped over to the wrong side and had no bump stops since I didn't know they were supposed to be in there so I flipped the motor and filled the plastic gear with JB weld (thanks to a tip from Buddycraigg on Youtube) and installed it all back in the car. Bingo! Problem solved and the headlights now work great. The one that I just serviced is a little faster now than the other one. I'm wondering if I should pull the other side one apart and do the same thing before that plastic gear gets a wear spot on it from the bump stops being all ground up which I'm sure they have got to be getting pretty worn down now after 29 years of service (though the car only has 70k miles on it)

The Stator is the shiny metal housing around the motor shaft. It has the magnets in it that determine rotation direction. Buddy has done some great things and videos of Fiero How-to's, but I just don't think J&B is a suitable long term substitute for bump stops. Hope I'm wrong and your motor lasts a long time.

So I serviced the driver's side motor. Same thing. Bump stops all ground to a green sand looking like stuff but fortunately the plastic gear was still in perfect shape so I cleaned it all out and jb welded the gear, greased it. All done in less than 1/3 the time it took to do the other side. Both sides now work perfectly and just as quickly as each other and they sound good for once. Pretty cheap fix at less than $5 per side for the JB weld, grease and screws with nuts from the local hardware store.

[This message has been edited by chrislayton (edited 03-21-2015).]