wherearemypistons?

There are 3 relays in front of the radiator. Is one of these the headlight retractor motor relay? I'm trying to troubleshoot a nonfunctioning motor(s).

wherearemypistons?

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WAYNE88N/A

Depending on options, you'll have the AC relay, e-fan relay, power steering relay, headlight relay, and dimmer relay up there (that's pretty much from left to right, although since I'm doing this from memory, I've probably got a couple of them mixed up)

I didn't think there is a retractor relay, I think it's a straight wiring shot from the fuse to the motors. Then again, that's from memory too, lol...

NZConvertible

Wayne's memory hasn't faded (yet... ); there's no seperate headlight retractor relay. The relays are built into the headlight switch and retractor motors.

wherearemypistons?

Do the motors work by:

1) reversing polarity?

2) reversing polarity with limit switches on up and down?

3) via relays @ each motor (open = down, closed = up)?

I accidently reversed polarity on my battery (in complete darkness). When I did this, the lights shot "up" and now won't go down . I'm getting 12V to the "up wires". I thought maybe the relay got fried and it's stuck in "closed" position. Everything else in the car survived my act of stupidity.

NZConvertible

All three are correct. I recommend you download the FSM wiring diagrams from www.iluvmyrx7.com. You'll need to look under the 86-88 section, as there are no online 89-91 wiring diagrams, but AFAIK the headlight wiring is unchanged between models. You should also get the 89 FSM Body Electrical chapter while you're there, as this contains more info on the headlight retractors.

wherearemypistons?

Thanks, Jason.

WAYNE88N/A

I finally have the schematics with me, and I've always wanted to dig into this system, since it is fairly complicated electrically, so here goes...

After the lights were put down previous to your battery snafu, the limit switches were set up by physical contact to energize the "up" circuit, as soon as the light switch would have been moved to do so. So when you reversed polarity, you shot 12v directly up the ground wire to the motor, through the limit switch, through the down contacts in the headlight switch, and on to the "head" fuse, a complete circuit, which made the lights pop up. Problem is now the limit switches should be set up for the "down" circuit, but you aren't going down, obviously...That's the way I see it, anyway, lol...

You just might have fried the coil and/or resister in both of the internal motor relays (or the diodes in the light switch), which is why you can't get the circuit to work now. Check the "retract" fuse first, in the engine fuse box, just in case you blew it...

Next thing I would do is read out the red/blue and red/yellow wires to ground, all power off of the car (might want to disconnect the battery, since this circuit is hot with the key off), at each motor assy, with the plug disconnected. Read on the motor side of the plugs, to ground. You should read one ground per pair of wires on each motor, this will verify that the coils are still good in each motor, if you get continuity to ground. If you have the schematics with you, you can also tell what position the limit switches are in by which wire is reading to ground (red/yellow being grounded means the "down" limit switch is made inside the motor, and vice-versa)

Only other thing I can think of is to manually retract the headlights back down, to hopefully "reset" the limit switches, back to the point a "normal" polarity flow will again activate the retractors...

Neither switch on the cluster will get them to work?

WAYNE88N/A

Just discovered something else, you can barely see them in the FSM wiring manual, but they're too big to miss in the "simplified" schematic shown in the body electrical section- there are diodes in each circuit going to the limit switches, so you shouldn't have popped those suckers up when you snafu'd. You may have fried them, which would result in an open circuit. Of course, this all depends on how I'm interpreting the positions of the relay contacts that get power from the "retract" fuse. I gotta assume that all switches are for the down position, de-energized circuit, which means the relay contacts shouldn't be down, like they are shown in the schematics. Hopefully you're as confused as I am now, lol...Damn Japanese schematics...Or maybe it's the North Koreans, like Hailers said

Aesop Rock

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wherearemypistons?

Wayne, your explantion makes sense (probably because I work with coils, relays, diodes etc. on a daily basis). The retractor fuse is still intact. I need to meter out my leads and see if my limit switches are "confused" as to what position they are currently readling. I know I'm getting 12V on two leads in the retractor harness (regardless of what position the headlight or independant up/down switches are set). I've downloaded the schematics, so it's just a matter of troubleshooting now. Thanks to everyone who responded -- I'll post back when I figure it out.

TODD

WAYNE88N/A

Well good, maybe you can explain to me how those damn internal relay contacts get "de-energized" to allow power to flow from the retractor fuse circuit "B2" on the schematic. Because it just doesn't make sense to me, lol...Either they've got the coil symbol on the wrong side of the contacts, or that relay "pushes" the contacts instead of "pulling" them. Or there's something else they're not showing us. The circuits at the motors (at the bottom of the circular "M" symbols) don't make any freakin' sense either...

WAYNE88N/A

Oh, BTW, with those diodes in there, if they're bad, you won't be able to read a ground through that sucker after all, no matter where the limit switch contacts are...

NZConvertible

I could never get ny head around the retractor system. I understand the concept, but I think the schematic's a but suss...

WAYNE88N/A

Yeah, and the troubleshooting steps given in the body electrical section don't tell you much either. Basically, if you're getting power there (at the motor) they assume the motor is bad and tell you to replace it, basically. After you've checked the grounds, of course...

Maybe we have something else for White FC to tear apart, eh?

wherearemypistons?

Wayne, I don't have the schematics in front of me, but relays can be "built" to serve different functions in different positions. When this happens, they are called "contactors". Normally, they operate via electromagnetism.
When the circuit is not "energized", a simple spring will "pull" the contacts into "open" position. When in "open" position, they can allow a circuit to flow through the "open" contacts (in and out to another locations or contact), essentially becoming just a glorified conductor. A relay or contactor can energize one circuit and de-energize another while staying in one position. The different circuits don't actually "touch" eachother. They are arranged on "poles" that are all operated by the same coil, but don't neccesarily have anything to do with eachother or share the same circuit.

If you already knew all of this, ignore the info -- maybe somebody will hit this on a search and get enlightend! I'll have time this weekend to troubleshoot this problem.
I'm hoping I don't have to replace the motors.

WAYNE88N/A

You need to have the schematics in front of you to understand what we're talking about- basically, if they drew the schematic right, you'd have power from the retractor fuse powering the motors 100% of the time, anytime that relay is de-energized (in other words, no power is being routed from the light switch), which is exactly 180* from what you would expect... There's something in that motor schematic they're not showing us, which is typical for Mazda...