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| Headlight motor not stopping (Page 1/2) |
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retrokid1983
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FEB 29, 10:50 AM
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Hi everyone!
Decided to take my Fiero 2.8 SE to the coast for the first run of the year a couple of weeks back (short reel of it on my instagram @retrokid1983). The car ran perfectly for the 6 hour round trip until I popped it back in the garage. The passenger headlamp goes down but doesn't stop unless the battery is disconnected (or the blue wire). Being in the UK I'm without spares over here. What do I need to sort it? Thanks everyone.
Rob
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Dukesterpro
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FEB 29, 12:58 PM
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Continuously running down implies the internal limit switch is not functioning, I would remove the headlight bucket, unbolt the motor and take a look inside the 3 bolt inspection panel to see if the limit switch and brush holders need to be cleaned
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1985 Fiero GT
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FEB 29, 02:19 PM
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yes, open it up and clean the limit switches, test them for functionality, you may need to replace the rubber bumpers inside the gear assembly, or the brushes on the motor itself, but first off take it apart and clean everything, worst case scenario, unplug the blue wire, and leave the headlights up, a surprising amount of people do that, until they can get replacement parts, and thats why that wire has an inline connector. it wont damage anything to leave it up, and will potentially save the motor and battery and wires from being left on while down.
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Additivewalnut
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FEB 29, 04:11 PM
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Looks like you're joining the winking fiero gang LOL
Mine's currently winking until I can swap my motors to gen 2. That's an expensive-ish but worthwhile endeavor since you can actually buy new motors unlike the gen 1. You can get rebuild kits for gen 1 motors from the fierostore for fairly cheap though.
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retrokid1983
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MAR 01, 03:44 AM
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Thank you everyone. I'll try the switch at the weekend and report back.
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fierofool
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MAR 01, 09:30 AM
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theogre
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MAR 02, 09:46 AM
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Correct it is the gear(s) or worse causing motor spin.
Don't bother to fix gen1 motors. Even If you "rebuild" them w/ "best" parts often only temporally & a money pit.------------------
Dr. Ian Malcolm: Yeah, but your scientists were so preoccupied with whether or not they could, they didn't stop to think if they should.
(Jurassic Park)
The Ogre's Fiero Cave
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1985 Fiero GT
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MAR 02, 12:02 PM
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| quote | Originally posted by theogre:
Don't bother to fix gen1 motors. Even If you "rebuild" them w/ "best" parts often only temporally & a money pit.
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It's true that gen 1 system can be hard to fix and the green 2 is better, but all available parts for it from the Fiero store, gears, bumpers, relays, add up to well less then $200, if the limit switches are good, and the motor assembly itself is good, then that is much cheaper to do a full rebuild then buying $180 with of motor, and $600 with of controller, then figure out the wiring, or start with junkyard motors and controller that may also not work, which is the whole reason to go to the green 1 system, to get new parts. Personally if the electrical side of the gen 1 motors are ok. Which these apparently are, you could rebuild the gen 1 motor to new spec, and spend a fraction of the cost.
Something I think I would like to see someone make, is a headlight switch with a built in timer, when you press off, it applies the voltage to the down wire for, say 10 seconds, then cuts off all power, then when you go up, same thing 10 seconds on, before cutting the power, even if you had twitchy headlights, you could run them for years like that, wouldn't drain your battery much.
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buddycraigg
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MAR 02, 11:44 PM
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is the knob on the motor actually continuing to spin, or does it just twitch?
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Dukesterpro
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MAR 04, 07:02 AM
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| quote | Originally posted by 1985 Fiero GT:
It's true that gen 1 system can be hard to fix and the green 2 is better, but all available parts for it from the Fiero store, gears, bumpers, relays, add up to well less then $200, if the limit switches are good, and the motor assembly itself is good, then that is much cheaper to do a full rebuild then buying $180 with of motor, and $600 with of controller, then figure out the wiring, or start with junkyard motors and controller that may also not work, which is the whole reason to go to the green 1 system, to get new parts. Personally if the electrical side of the gen 1 motors are ok. Which these apparently are, you could rebuild the gen 1 motor to new spec, and spend a fraction of the cost.
Something I think I would like to see someone make, is a headlight switch with a built in timer, when you press off, it applies the voltage to the down wire for, say 10 seconds, then cuts off all power, then when you go up, same thing 10 seconds on, before cutting the power, even if you had twitchy headlights, you could run them for years like that, wouldn't drain your battery much. |
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Yeah, I tried the timer idea for my capstone project. The issue is that different motors in different stages of wear, take different amounts of time to traverse. As they wear down they move slower, and spend more time at full locked stalled. This wears even them even more and get the wires nice and hot after a few movements of the light. Unsafe, even by my standards. 
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