what is the retractor fuse for?
 

what is the retractor 30 amp fuse for under the hood?

headlights

headlights. Also called the "Retra" fuse on other cars with popups.

so its basically for the motors for the pop up lights?

yes, that's exactly what it does

This topic brings up an intersting question though...

On my FD, when you turn on the headlights, they turn on but don't open, but when you push the button on the left of the dash, they do open...What could be the problem?

Yes, it's a relay in the circuits for the headlight motors. IIRC it's in the circuit for both the headlight motor actuation via the headlight switch as well as for the headlight button to flip the lights up that is on the left side of the instrument panel.

awesome! thanks alot for all the replies!

its your RET (retractor) relay.

you can test it by opening up your relay box, there are 2 relays right next to each other that look alike (most likely blue), those are your TNS relay and your RET relay.

to see if your RET relay is out, you can use the TNS relay since they are the same thing. turn on your headlights and your retractors should pop up.

make sure to put the TNS relay back in its place (its your exterior lights, gauges and running lights)

those relays can be quite expensive (about $30) so make sure you handle both of them with care. most of the time they just need a cleaning.

let me know if this works.

Head lamps not popping up
 

If your relay turns out not to be a problem, strange as it may seem, it may turn out to be a poor ground to the headlamps. The difference between using the "pop the headlights" switch and just turning on the headlamps is that in the first case it turns on ONLY the headlamp "raise" motors, but in the latter case it turns on the motors AND the headlamps. In this latter case, if there is a grounding problem, the extra (pretty large) current drain of the headlamps causes such a big voltage drop on the "raise" motors that they just don't work. (It happened my 7! More details available on an earier post of mine, if you need it). Good luck!

Reviving this thread! I bought my FD 2 weeks ago and notice that mine was missing the retra relay and searched what it's for and came to this thread...
But the thing is that my pop up headlights are working fine, when I turn the lights on it pop up automatically also it can be pop up or down with the botton too... the only thing I notice is that sometimes it have some delay to pop up or get stuck in the middle ( giving the lazy eye like headlight mod) but eventually will pop up completely.
So should I get the relay or what really happening to my car? not sure if it needs cleaning or something because of the delay to pop sometimes.