I tried to search for my specific issue but really couldn’t find it on here so I wanted to ask you guys. I recently hit a narrow low curb middle divider. Luckily I don’t have any exterior body damage just a small scuff on the bottom lip. I did hit the bottom frame rail towards the front, kind of under the motor but there are no bends just scuffs. The car did get stuck on this small divider so I had to get help from a tow truck to slide it back out. This happened at night so of course my lights were popped open, but when I hit this curb the driver side light came down. So now only the passenger side headlight retracts up and down but not the driver side. Both lights do turn on and off though and even with the car off the “head lamp” warning light on my dash stays on and drains the battery so I left the battery disconnected for now. After driving the car around trying to figure out what’s happening I then popped the hood open and noticed there’s a slight electrical burning smell and found out that the driver side headlight motor was hot enough where it’ll start burning my hand if I keep it on there for about five seconds. My 79’ only has 70k original miles and has always been kept garaged. Should I just replace the headlight motor or are there other things I should check first? Thanks in advance

 

Sounds like the headlight mechanism on that side is binding after the accident and the motor can't do its thing. I would disconnect the motor at the plug to it to see if that helps with the batter drain issue and the hot motor. Then I would manually spin the **** under the rubber cover of the headlight motor and see where it be binding at. Also check for any wiring being pinched or messed up. I wonder if when this happened if the battery bumped around and hit the headlight assembly. I would be pulling the battery and seeing if anything has been messed up. Theres a lot of wiring on that side near the battery.

 

How fast were you going when you hit the parking block? Serious question.

If the only problem is that one of your 2 actuator arms has broken the plastic socket, then the headlight retractor mechanism won't work, and further, it won't ever reach the end of its throw, which will cause the motor to turn non-stop. You should be able to hear this with the hood open and the manual headlight switch up (*no lights on, as it's for cleaning the headlight lenses). If you hear the motor cycling non-stop, that's your problem. Replace the broken actuator arm and you should be fine.

The trick about spinning the manual actuator **** on the end of the motor only works if the arms are intact, obviously. If you were going much faster than a crawl, I'd start looking at other wiring issues due to the impact force.

 

Thank you guys for the reply! So did some digging and noticed the arms were not even where they’re supposed to be. So I turned the **** on top of the motor to be able to reach the dangling arms and saw that the bushings were completely broken and old. Looks like the hit pretty much snapped them out of place. I placed the holes of the arms without the bushings onto the spots where they’re supposed normally go, hooked up the battery and now both lights go up and down, the headlight motor doesn’t get hot no more, and the “head lamp” warning light is no longer on! I’m super stoked that all I need now are new bushings or the complete arms to replace. Thank you LongDuck and tg Farrell for the help, I appreciate it.

 

Good to hear. Theres someone on here that sells 3d printed replacements for those bushings.

 

Okay sounds good, will search for them. Thanks

 

I was probably going about 15 mph 🤦🏽‍♂️