Headlight motor

[86305_TA]

I got an 86 T/A and neither of my headlights pop up. I was thinking replace the relays and that would be fine, but I'm not sure where the relay is and even if that would fix it. I have to turn the little wheel to manually put them up, but the left one winds itself back down so I have to put a zip tie from the wheel to anything to keep the wheel from winding itself back down. When I have the zip tie holding the wheel in place and the headlight up the little motor that the wheel is attached to gets really hot. The one on the right headlight doesn't get hot, also if I leave the left one up it completley drains my battery. So I'm not positive what to replace to fix all this and I'm tired of having to get out, open the hood spend 5 minutes putting up the headligts, looking for a ziptie, and then cutting the ziptie and put the right headlight down when I get home, and for some reason now even if the headlight is down it still drains my battery. I used to be able to put the headlights down and it would be fine but tonight it started to drain the battery even if the headlights are down and the little motor stays hot. Any info would be helpful.

 

[analogkid455]

When you hit the headlight switch do the motors run? Usually on these cars, the transmission for the headlight assembly gets trashed. On my 87 I took the trannys apart and put glue sticks in where the factory put plastic sticks in. These plastic sticks get ground up into granulars and the motors run but the headlights don't come up. If you take them apart and a bunch of little plastic pieces fall out.... I have tried other things but the glue sticks work the best.Just cut them to length and put them in.
If the motors don't run then you will have to trouble shoot with a multimeter. Let me know and we can go from there.

 

[86305_TA]

I can't tell if the motors run or not when I flip the headlights on. They don't make any noise just that one gets really hot.

 

[analogkid455]

OK. If you have the engine off (so you can listen for the headlight motors) and hit the headlight switch, can you hear anything? If not, then test to see if you are getting voltage to the motors. If you are, the motors are shot. If no voltage is seen at the motors, then you will have to find the relay for the motors and swap it with a known good one and check for voltage again. Still no voltage? Check the wiring and the fuse. The motor getting hot sounds like it is burned up or shorted. Make sure the insulation on the wires is not torn off and touching metal somewhere. Is there anything binding up and not allowing the headlights to come up? Can you lift the headlights up with your hands? Don't use alot of force when you try this. I don't know how many times I have seen the brackets broken on these cars from people trying to pull them up by hand.The brackets cost 114 dollars at the dealer each!

I just reread your first post and it sounds like the one that is getting hot is running all the time. That sounds to me like a relay sticking on. But, I can bet you that you'll have to do the glue stick trick. That is why that one goes down but won't go up. The other one is probably shot to. Now they sell the complete motor and tranny for 150 bucks each but I wouldn't spend that unless you have to.

______________________________

 

[86305_TA]

Thanks, that clears up alot of questions I had. I'm gonna try switching realays, I already bought some so I try it I'll let ya know what happens after I switch them.