As some of you know I bought an 84 SE with 100,000 miles on it a while back. The car has been great. One of the few flaws on the car is that the headlight motors don't work. They don't respond at all (meaning no noise or anything at all) when I flick the lightswitch on. The lights come on but I have to crank the headlights up if I want to see anything at night.

I understand this could be a "central" relay that controls both headlight motors, and there are little boxes of new relays under the hood like someone was replacing them. Maybe that is all that's wrong...but what if the main relay was manipulated/disconnected because something is wrong with the headlight motors?

My question for this thread is how hard is it to rebuild the 84-86 headlight motors, do they have the same gear stripping issues as the 87-88s and if so is there a better replacement? I've read these are a pain to rebuild compared to the second generation headlight motors...but how hard can they be? Are they really THAT difficult? Will second generation motors bolt in place of the first generation motors?

Ok that was more than one question....but any info is appreciated!

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Test the motors first before you do anything.
To test opening on first generation motors, disconnect both plugs of both motors. Ground the gray wire to ground and supply +12 volts to the green wire and the light should raise. To close, apply +12 volts to the white wire and the light should lower.
If both motors operate OK the isolation relay is bad. The isolation relay is NOT the same as the others for the headlight motors and is located on the left side motor. It can be identified as it has six wires at it's connector and NO red wires.

On a side note, if both motors are bad it would be morre cost effective to convert the entire system to the second generation wiring and componets. That is only my opinion.
(that is a NO answer to your last question)

[This message has been edited by Indiana_resto_guy (edited 10-30-2004).]

These links will give you info on rebuilding and/or updating to Gen 2 (87 and 88).

http://www.fierosails.com/headlights.html

http://home.comcast.net/~fierocave/

http://www.michiganfieroclub.org/headlight.htm

[This message has been edited by DeV8er (edited 10-30-2004).]

Wow thanks for the info ! That is exactly what I needed.

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I can recommend Rodney Dickmans replacement gears.
http://www.rodneydickman.com
they come with very comprehensive instructions, and loads of info on checking the whole system...
Iain

Thanks for the link. I've just recently discovered Rodney Dickman via advertising in this forum and I plan to get his rebuild kit for the 84-86 headlights, if not change over to 87-88s eventually. Even if its just an electrical problem....I still want to upgrade with Rodney's kit to have peace of mind.

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Anyone with the early model headlights should rebuild them to replace the internal shock absorbing bumpers bumpers with Rodney's replacements. The headlights will continue to run without the bumpers intact but eventually this will tear up the plastic gear. The bumpers are much cheaper than the gear. In every model headlight I have taken apart (even normally functioning ones) the bumpers have turned to powder.

This post has some good photos and instructions on rebuilding gen 1 light motors.

https://www.fiero.nl/forum/Forum2/HTML/045256.html

I did not remove the large nylon gear from the shaft. Instead I pressure washed the assembly and used hot glue in the pockets where the bumpers go.