My passenger side headlight motor started working intermittantly, then quit totally. The motor can't be cheap or easy to find, so I figured I'd at least TRY to fix the old one first. My fix worked. Here's what I did.
Raise the lights. If the motor has quit completely, you can do this with the hand crank behind the light assembly.
Pull off the plastic trim cover by removing the four screws.
Remove the nut holding the motor shaft to the headlight crank, and the three bolts holding the motor to the rest of the headlight assembly. There is an access hole provided so you can reach the rear bolt with an extension, and 1/4 drive rachet and sockets are best, because space is limited. Socket size is 10mm.
The hardest part of the job is unplugging the headlight motor. On the passenger side, the windshield squirter bottle has to go, so the knock sensor and the cowl support have to go to get the bottle out. On the driver side, the cruise control and coolent overflow bottle have to come out. The connecter is a fat, white, round plug. Hook your thumb nail under the locking prong, and bend it out and away from the plug body. The plug should then pull apart easily.
The motor has been dipped in rubber. Fear not, because you can seal it later with silicone. Take out the two screws that hold the armature housing to the gearbox (Probably 5.5mm, but I didn't have a socket that size, so I used something american.), and start cranking on the manual knob at the back of the motor while you wiggle. This will turn the worm gear on the motor shaft out of the gearbox. I don't remember which way I had to turn the knob to get it apart, but a good bit of wiggling was required, and I cut the rubber coating with a razor blade when the cover began to come off.
The brushes inside the motor have copper braided wire on them. There are hooks on the brush guides that probably were intended to help hold the brushes as the motor was assembled. Once the brushes wear a certain amount, the wires pull tight and the brush can't move out any more. By readjusting where the barb on the brush guide hooks the braided wire, you give the wire more slack so the brushes can move out further and touch the armature again.
I cleaned up the commutator where the brushes run with a gentle scuff of some 600 sandpaper, and cleaned the ends of the brushes as well.
Getting the motor back together is tricky. A second pair of hands would really help, but I did it alone. You'll need two dental picks to hold the brushes back as you slide the motor back together. Do this outdoors in sunlight or under a very bright light so you can see what you are doing. Some twisting on the knob will be required to get the worm gear to drop back in. Don't force the commutator into the brushes. If you break the brushes, it's new motor time. Just be gentle and patient, and make sure the motor slides in between the brushes.
Plug the motor into the wiring harness and cycle the lights to test it. If you blow the fuse and the other headlight stops working, you got a brush wire trapped against the motor casing. Take the motor back apart and fix it again., being careful not to snag the wires on reassembly. Don't ask me how I know this part...
If you blow the fuse, it's located on the driver's side strut tower. It's one of those big, plastic, $2.50 per fuse at Autozone suckers. The fuse you'll blow is the second one in line, if you call the fuse closest to the motor first in line. The factory rating on this fuse is 20 amps, and it should be blue unless someone replaced it with a bigger one.
So that's it. I did the job in four hours, and that was figuring it out as I went. I also took apart a bunch of stuff I didn't have to, and made a run to the store for fuses. I could easily do it in half the time or less, now that I know what I'm doing. The brushes had another ten years of life left in them, so I don't anticipate having to do this again any time soon. Best of all, I fixed it for $5.00 worth of blown fuses, and could do it next time without blowing the fuse.
Maybe you'll want to stick this in the how-to section?
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Topic: headlight delay switch capri 90 model (Read 3489 times)