Headlight Solution (Please Sticky)

[Questioner]

Yea i replaced my plastic gear in my driver side 2 times back to back and the motor kept stripping the plastic gears do yourself a favor order a brass gear off ebay haven't had any problems in 3 months and still going.

[024mula]

I installed a new plastic gear last weekend on the drivers side. It seemed to work properly after I finished. I turned the lights on and off to be sure it worked. I didn't drive the car again till Thursday night and it's doing it again. Any idea were I went wrong?

I replaced my last year with brass gears and it worked fine at first but a that night it didn't, the only think I could think of is that I didn't let the glue dry enough. So I redid them and this time I didn't operate the motor for 24 hours or until the glue drys and they worked for over a year until the glue left loose on one motor. Now I'm thinking about using this kind of repair kit, Firebird Headlight Motor Gears by Rodney Dickman

[1stbird]

I tried the 180 flip after all of these years and now it grinds when it opens instead of when it closes... Guess it's time for a new gear or to decide which way sounds worse! LOL

[RCH33]

Mine just started the grinding when trying to close. (Passenger). I also noticed that now when I try to turn on the parking lights only, the headlights flip up but don't turn on until you turn the switch on over for headlights. I tried to rotate the gear 180 degrees. That allowed the lid to close now and since it closes without a problem, if I flip to just parking lights only the parking lights come on, the headlights stay closed. BUT, now if I turn on main headlights, it won't open fully and just grinds. So I have traded not closing without grinding; to not opening without grinding. But, I can now drive with just parking lights and fogs. New brass gears on order from Rodney Dickman. I went ahead and bought both sides as the other will probably go soon. 😀