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My left headlight goes ballistic. I'm assuming it's electrical.

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Old 06-16-03, 06:19 PM
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Exclamation My left headlight goes ballistic. I'm assuming it's electrical.

Cliff's notes:
When I press the headlight retractor switch, the left headlight repeatedly goes up and down, and continues to do so for a short while after I turn off the headlight retractor switch.


Unabridged version:
Well, I've always had this problem where the left headlight "sticks". It isn't physically stuck, it just seems like the actuator simply isn't raising the headlight. Anyways, yesterday afternoon it starts to rain and so I press the headlight button and, naturally, lefty stays closed. I press it a few more time and then lefty gets stuck about 80% of the way up. Freaking great. Oh well, so I'm driving and then lefty starts going up, down, up, down, up, down... continuously. I freak out and start repeatedly pressing the headlight switch and just give up after about ten presses. About a minute later it goes down and stays down. Good headlight. This morning I tried pressing the switch again and I get the same response: up, down, up, down, up, down... and again I leave the switch in the down position and again the headlight stops in the down position after about another minute of flaunting its dominance over my technical abilities.

I think there may be something wrong with the headlight retractor relay, but it's probably expensive and I'm hoping to get some second opinions.


Thanks in advance.
Old 06-17-03, 04:14 PM
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*bump*
Old 06-17-03, 06:33 PM
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that happened to me once. there was something keeping the light from going up all the way, i think, and it kept going back down and up to correct itself. i believe i found the problem, but also messed around with that manual retractor motor **** on the back and fixed it.

raj
Old 06-17-03, 07:16 PM
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Time for a sleek light kit - my left headlight has done the up/down thing before but only like 3-4 times then stays up - hasn't happened in quite a while - I figure if it ever gets out of hand I'd just with the East Bear light kit.
Old 06-17-03, 08:37 PM
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The retractor Motor, to the Headlight Is grounded to Itself. You may wanna check that out.
Old 06-20-03, 07:51 PM
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rajeevx7,
Thanks for the tip. I played around with the manual retractor crank and it seems to have fixed it.

kwikrx7,
I'd love non-retractable lights, but I can barely afford to keep this car on the road.
Old 06-20-03, 07:57 PM
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my drivers side lite would just go up but couldn't come down. I just replaced the motor and it works now.

It takes about 30 minutes to get the entire housing out. Maybe do that and see whats going on/oil it.

Snook
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