Couple days ago I was driving the 7 in the morning and decided to turn on my headlights because it was a little overcast. I soon noticed only one headlight opened, so I figured, I'd live without them at the moment and turned them off. While finishing my drive to work I would try flipping up the headlights and still only the drivers side one would go up.

After work I tried it again, both of them went up but the passenger side moved noticeably slower and started moving later. After I drove home I turned the lights off and now the darn passenger side light won't go down. Checked my fuses, they look good. I would like to check the connector to the retractor motor but I'm not familiar with what the connector looks like. Could it just be a blown retractor motor?


Thanks,

~Ant

 

The plug to the passenger side retractor motor is round and has four wires. Red/Blue, Red/Yellow, White/Green and the Black wire is the ground which should be the first wire to check. You could take a jumper wire and stab it into the back of the plug where the Black wire resides and then place the other end of the jumper wire to a known ground such as the casing/housing of the alternator or the negative battery terminal and see if the light goes down. If this doesn't work then we'll try some other stuff.

 

Check the Linkage arms that go from the Motor to the light assembly.
Those arms have PLASTIC BUSHINGS,That often will just Bind and not allow the light to go up or down,or make it "wonky".
Recently mine just started to not go UP all the way and then won't go down
If I pull the light it will go UP,.then allow it to go down,.I know what it is,so I am not worried.Maybe yours is the same thing( the Linkage to the lights.).

 

Here's the update:

Checked the linkage arm, it looks like it's functioning properly. I took a jumper wire to the ground wire and turned the headlights on with no result. I checked the connector and the red/blue and red/yellow are both getting 12v so I'm thinking the relay is shot? Sound reasonable to you guys?

EDIT:

The passenger relay makes a very small but audible clicking noise. I believe the drivers side (working side) is loud enough that I can hear it in the drivers seat.

 

The other day your last post stated the passenger side headlight was stuck in the up position. If this is so then the light switch would need to be in the off position when jumpering the ground.

As far as the two wires you checked that have battery voltage only one should have voltage. If you were to check the same two wires from the good headlight it would show that only one of the two wires would have voltage.

Concerning the relay, the wiring diagram doesn't show it because they were only used on the earlier models before 88. How many wires does the relay have? The relay requires a ground and voltage to work thus when you flip the switch that provides one of the two signals to get it to activate. It's possible that the one signal that isn't present is not occuring when the switch is turned or as you say the relay is damaged goods. I guess you could switch out the problematic relay w/the good one and you'll find out whether the problem lies within the relay itself or the wiring.

EDIT: I did a little searching and it appears the relay should have four wires. Red/Blue, Red/Yellow, White/Green and Black. The White/Green should be constant voltage thus the relay is awaiting the ground signal on the Black wire to activate. You could try jumpering a ground to this Black wire and see what happens. In my first post responding to your problem the Black wire I suggested to jumper a ground to was the Black wire connected to the actual motor and not the relay ground wire. I'm guessing you jumpered a ground to the relay and not the motor itself.

 

That's interesting because the white/green wire was the only wire (aside from ground) that was not receiving 12v with the car in the ON position. Your research suggests that it should be getting a constant 12v, I may have to look into that issue as well.

I grounded the system before the relay, I think your suggestion is correct, by grounding after the relay that could be another way of checking to see if it's working properly. When time permits, I'll take a picture of the relay and post it.

 

Since you have one headlight which operates properly I would use its relay for comparison purposes. The White/Green wire comes from the Retractor fuse in the engine fuse box and all wires coming from this fuse box have constant voltage on them. If you were to check the W/G wire at the good relay it should have constant voltage w/no key necessary. Also, the good relay should have voltage on the Red/Yellow wire if the headlight is down or if up then voltage on the Red/Blue wire but not both at the same time.

 

update:

Turns out the relay to the headlight retractor does have a connector to the harness, so I was just able to unplug it. Just need to find a place that sells them.