Headlight Gear Replacement

[Fred H.]

I just finished replacing my second set of plastic headlight motor gears with metal ones. I previously did this on my 94 after the motors began to fail, and decided to do a pre-emptive strike on the 02 and replace them before they failed.

The old gears still looked good when I took them out, but there was almost no grease in them, and they were really making a lot of noise when closed.

I got the replacement gears from Rodney Dickman here:
http://www.rodneydickman.com/n113.html

It was around $80 for the set of aluminum gears. They went in fine and the motors are now much quieter and smoother.

Getting the back bolt for the motor on and off the Gen 4 car is a bit of a challenge. I used one of those new box "gear" wrenches to help. Getting the motors out on the 94 was cake walk compared to removing them on the 02. Once the motor is out, you have to pry off the case lid, being careful not to break or crack it in the process. Take your time and work around the edges slowly. Rodney includes the glue you need to glue the lid back on and also provides a new support brace to help hold the lid on and stabilize the output shaft. All in all, it made a huge improvement in the operation of my headlights.

Installation time for both headlights, including rebuild of the motors and waiting for the epoxy to set for an hour, was about 3-4 hours. I installed them after an hour of cure time, but didn't operate the lights till they sat overnight and cured.

There is a guy in Dallas that rebuilds motors with Rodneys kit and does exchanges if you don't want to crack it open and do it yourself. If I can find a link to his site I will post it.

There is a good site that has photos of the process on an older generation car here:
http://www.bfranker.badz28.com/headl...earinstall.htm