Headlamps part 1

Headlights 
 After some fiddling with the switch I had managed to get the right hand headlight to rise and illuminate, but there was no progress with the left. Both headlamps can be raised manually using the knob on the bottom of the motor- take out the plug grommets under the wheel arch and insert your hands into this dark cavernous and (in my case) inhabited space. The knobs were faulty but I could raise the light manually  with only a little pain in my fingers. Once up, the light would power down when the ignition is turned on. However its time to investigate so headlamps off! There is little detail on how to do this (too simple I suspect) but since I worry about putting too much force in the wrong place- yes I've been there, this is how I did it:

Raise the headlight and detach the black plastic bezel- two press fit studs one each side easily levered out.

standard trim plastic stud rivets just pull out using finger pressure.

The headlamp is then "unclipped" although its wasn't immediately clear whether this meant at the rim of the light where the adjuster screws are or at the pod.- Its actually at the pod, amazingly the headlight just pushes into 3 pop-fit fasteners and can be carefully levered out- seems a fragile and delicate arrangement which suspect will fail if you have to take the lights off very often!

Adjuster screws are simply a push-fit into a nylon bush in the pod rim

Headlight removed and disconnected from loom, motor connector rod inside.

TThe pod is held on by two bolts at the back and moved by means of a cross shaft connected to the motor by a sprung rod. This incorporates an adjuster to set the "down" position. Someone had obviously been here before as the bolts holding the pod were only hand tight and there was a scattering of more debris in the pod- remember I had already removed some pliers and a spanner (as well as a mouse nest)- I now found a pen, spare bolt and several  Mars bar wrappers! Lucky this car doesn't move as this lot would have rattled around something terrible!

Next step according to my instructions was to "ease off the connecting rod". This is the sort of guidance I hate because it means everything to someone who has done this already and nothing to anyone who hasn't! Ease it off where? If you want to remove the pod surely you have to disconnect the rod- that's a sort of terminal easing off I guess? 

Cross-rod and adjusting rod with retaining nut on top. Base of rod screws into  threaded ball joint on the motor arm, note pod-retaining nuts only loosely fitted from LBPO previous repair attempt- does not bode well.

Anyway the retaining nut on the top of the rod was accessible although rusted solid. Undoing that screwed the whole rod out of the adjuster ball joint at its base so out it popped and the pod 

Pod cavity-- after emptying!

was easily removed. This revealed the motor at last... and also a badly decayed plywood bulkhead at the side. I am aware that these are often rotten, and mine sadly is no exception- I assume the other side will be the same so these will need to be changed. I guess someone thought that it was a good idea to put wooden panels into a GRP body rather than more GRP but time has not really supported that decision. If they were intended as a weak crumple point then they have clearly become self-crumpling over the years. I would have thought that in this day and age there must be a more suitable synthetic cellular sheeting that would be better- but I guess I will simply replace the plywood for more plywood (eventually).

The motor is another fitting with far too many wires- can it really need all these connections? Sadly there is no explanation of operating principle in the manual and the wiring diagrams are incomprehensible (to me anyway). Strangely the wire colours I found connected to this LH motor are actually those shown for the RH motor but the connections are presumably the same.  I tried to apply power to the motor directly but nothing I did induced any movement at all. A search of the web failed to turn up any procedure for testing the thing so I assumed that this will probably need to be replaced. Plenty of evidence that the LBPO had experienced problems as well- so I will probably need a new motor here.

So as before, I put everything back together. Very tricky to line up the rod and the ball joint adjuster while the rod is still connected to the cross shaft so I removed the rusted top nut, screwed the adjusting rod into the ball joint and then replaced the pod by fitting the rod to the cross member before finally inserting the bolts. I had to crank the motor a little with the hand control to raise the arm so that it could connect to the rod whilst my hand was still inside.

Reassembly went easily and with trepidation I tried the switch- Hey presto Both lamps rose at once!!!

Joy short lived- although both rose, the left hand now did not go down!

Suggestive winks from my project car- LH light pod will not retract.

I then started to crank it down by hand only to have the motor take over and respond to the suggested movement and power the pod down- more pain to fingers! This has to mean that the motor can work in both directions although it has trouble starting to move. Perhaps something is stuck or jammed internally? I have also found that on occassion I can get it to lower by disconnecting and reconnecting the battery? Strange behaviour indeed. I will also try cleaning the relay contacts. I have seen these motors stripped down so perhaps this is worth trying too? I'm fishing for any ideas that might be floating around out there off  Blogger-bank? 

I'm not sure where to go with this- have I fitted the light back with the motor in the wrong position? - ie motor now thinks its down when pod is up or vice versa? Since I can't understand the workings of this system I will have to do some more research- so once again I will return to this on a later day.

Incidentally whilst under the car I also noticed that the steering rack gaiters are split so I suspect it will need a new rack as well! The list keeps growing as I find new problems faster than I am fixing them! Hopefully this is just because I'm at such an early stage.

Luckily I am thinking of this as a long term project!