1989 headlight doors and left front signal

[marscont]

THANKS EVERYONE FOR THE HELP!!
Ground wire on the front left signal light was loose..easy fix.
We've ordered the parts for the headlight motors.
THANKS AGAIN! Sid

 

[Mac]

Welcome to the CAC, Sid!

I've moved your thread from the Edge Forum (which is non-technical) into the C4 Technical Forum where our resident experts should soon solve your problem. Good luck!!

 

[Ken]

Welcome To The Corvette Action Center marscont!

Glad to have you with us.

As for the headlights not opening upon command, the problem (most likely) is that the gears in the motor are shot. The gears are plastic of some sort and over time will actually disintegrate, and the headlights will no longer open or hold their position.

One can manually override the headlamp motor by unclipping the retaining wire from around the knob (which can be found on the bottom side of the headlamp housing under the hood) and turning the knob in the direction one wants the headlamps to go.

All of the aftermarket houses, such as Mid America Designs or Corvette Central carry the replacement plastic gears. They also carry a set of gears cast in bronze; however, care should be taken when considering the bronze gears - the gears will be stronger than the motor and if you live in a climate where there is a possibility of the headlamps icing over, you might burn the motor out if the headlamps won't open.

I would be shooting in the dark if I tried to answer your turn signal question, but it could be something as simple as a bad ground.

There will be more responses before too long.

 

[Magmotor]

Concerning your lights:
1) Do the turn indicators work properly when the headlight swith is off????
2) Check to see if you have battery voltage at C2 on your 32 pin J-connector at your cluster when the left turn signal is on....it should be flashing battery voltage.

Somehow your getting voltage between the brn wire & light blue wire (see pic) when you pull the headlight switch. We need to back track to find what is working in order to find out what isn't.....

 

[tyrel]

If I can interject, it isn't the gears themselves that disintegrate, it is the bushings housed inside the gears. The bushings look like little plastic cylinders. There are three of them, and over time they turn to dust, thus the floppy headlight door syndrome. This is a very common problem on aging C4s. The fix is fairly simple, both Mid America and Eckler's sell new headlight bushings for around $5.00 per set, so you should buy two sets and do both sides. I'm willing to bet that your gears are still good, so if you open up the motor housing and the teeth on the gears are all chewed up, I'll eat my hat.

 

[onedef92]

I'll lay odds its your bushings. Go to Home Depot and ask for item number 595609. You will need six of these nylon spacers to repair both headlights. They cost me .69 cents (plus tax) for a pack of three at my local Home Depot store.

Much cheaper than the $7.99 price in MAD, Eckler's and some of the other specialty catalogs and they are the exact same Delrin spacers. Go figure.

If there's a TechTips portal on this Forum search under "headlight bushings." If not, let me know and I'll see if I can get you a copy of the instructions I used when I replaced mine a couple of months ago.