I had an older Lincoln parked outside my place last week and noticed the headlight covers were vacuum controlled, It was just a canister going to a piston that raised/lowered the covers. I looked at my fiero and it seemed to have room to change to this, but I have no idea how strong the vacuum was ect. Has anybody tried this? Anybody have any ideas on this? Anybody have any Fruitcake Brad
Owners of old Camaro vacuum operated light doors curse the day they were invented. IMHO vacuum systems would be extremely inferior to modern electric systems in every way that it could be measured.
JazzMan
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01:21 PM
jscott1 Member
Posts: 21676 From: Houston, TX , USA Registered: Dec 2001
The one thing I would like to try is to adapt the 4th gen firebird motors. They are a lot newer and will last a long time before they need rebuilding. They could be bolt-on upgrades, but I've never tried it.
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01:28 PM
3.8 SC Member
Posts: 577 From: On the Great Lakes-Ohio Registered: Dec 2003
My first love (the Saab Sonett III) has popup headlights, and a much "better" system if you ask me. On the leftmost part of the dash along the bottom is a big T-shaped handle marked "LIGHTS." Want the lights up? Grab the lever and pull it about 4 inches twards you. Lights flip up and click on when they get there. Ta dah. Give it a shove to put them back down. All it was was a long rod going to the front of the car, which connected to the bottom of the headlight buckets in such a way that 4 inches flipped them up and took them past the point where they fell back down. The passenger side was connected to the driver's side by a rod so they both went up together. Was great if you liked that "hands on" feel of operating your car instead of the "push of a button" type conveniance. Whole car was like that actually...
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07:41 AM
ltlfrari Member
Posts: 5356 From: Wake Forest,NC,USA Registered: Jan 2002
How about a screw drive system with limit switches, like a Genie garage door opener uses? I bet someone could make something to work that way and you could even adjust how high the lights would open with that system. Just an idea.
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08:17 AM
PFF
System Bot
USFiero Member
Posts: 4879 From: Everywhere and Middle of Nowhere Registered: Mar 2002
I have been thinking about this also. I was thinking about a cable pully and lever. The idea of it also turning on the lights when you pull the lever is cool. Hmm guess I better get back to work.
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02:15 PM
HellYes Member
Posts: 736 From: CLifton, IL 60927 Registered: Mar 2005
I played with the idea of a choke cable to raise them. I think it would work great if you took one of the springs out of each door. Use a parking brake cable to equalize the 2.
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03:18 PM
HellYes Member
Posts: 736 From: CLifton, IL 60927 Registered: Mar 2005
You could use air cylinders but you'd need a compressor and you'd probably need some way to slow the movement down.
Slowing them would be simple. Air cylenders are almost always installed with fittings that have a needle value that restricts the volume on the supply line. However, pressure or vaccume, you are still back to an air driven system, and all the problems associated with them.
Yeah! I like how good they work when you have your foot to the floor
Yeah, had them on an early 60s vette, but when you've got your foot in it, ya don't need wipers anyway-the rain just flies off the windshield from raw speed. Course, it was irritating that they always stopped right in my field of vision....
Before someone jumps in here, and pops off that it's so much easier just to fix the old motors---and ya know someone is going to--we're just throwing out ideas for the heck of it.
Vacum isn't as bad an idea as it seems, except for when the engine isn't running. A vac reservoir up in the front might take care of the problems usually associated with the antique wipers and such. Vacum is already run to front via the brake booster piping, but I'd be danged carefull about robbing much if any of that. Using the right bellcrank, the travel distance wouldn't have to be much.
Air pressure? Heck, just tap into the sparetire. In 9 yrs, I've never used the dang thing anyway.
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03:48 PM
jscott1 Member
Posts: 21676 From: Houston, TX , USA Registered: Dec 2001
I think it would work great if you took one of the springs out of each door.
The only problem with removing the springs is that the doors would pop up as soon as you started moving form the air pressure, unless you also added a latching mechanism. Then it started to get complicated again.
Just a magnetic coil that forces the light up. It would have to be damped with an air piston or something... but more reliable than a vacuume system, and still reliable when the car is not running. Could even be wired up in parallel to the head lights themselves.....the bulbs get 12V, so does the electro-magnet.
Just a magnetic coil that forces the light up. It would have to be damped with an air piston or something... just yet another idea for public consuption
Like a solenoid? Thought about that, but most aren't designed to be energized for long periods at a time--like driving all night.
I was thinking about using a spring and latch system. Release the latch and a spring pops up the light. Then a lever to reset them. If you dont drive the car very often you could just get out of the car and push the lights down.
Vacuum systems, aside from problems with leaks etc were usually pretty slow. One of the reasons they went away is that FMVSS 571.108 says that any cover lift etc has to cycle open in under a few seconds. 5 maximum I think.
The Gen 2 light motors are faster and quieter than the older system. I've had both now. Gen 1 sounds like an aircraft spooling up compared the Gen 2. Gen 2 you don't hear most of the time unless maybe your parked when you hit them.
That I'm aware of, GM hasn't made any major change to the motors since the Gen 2 system was released almost 20 years ago. They may have some smaller ones now. I believe the few models that have motor driven lights are even still using the same controler or at least the same type of control. (Some may be running off the body control computer.)
Linear actuators could maybe do it if you can find some fairly quick ones. The easiest way to do these would be to use a controller like the Gen 2 HL motors tho it might need calibration for the alternate motor.
Carefully sized Stepper motors could do it. Probably without any gear reduction at all for some of them. These could be tricky to control reliably.
A small air ram could do it if you were also doing a bagged suspension. Be allot of work for little gain by itself.
If you did a vacuum system you want to put a valve in it someplace so you can cut off the line back in the engine bay. That way if the thing starts leaking you've got an easy way to cut it out so you don't have idle problems etc. As I remember the vacuum systems needed a fairly large servo to pull the weight. At peak vacuum you'll only have 15 PSI to work with.
------------------ Dr. Ian Malcolm: Yeah, but your scientists were so preoccupied with whether or not they could, they didn't stop to think if they should. (Jurasic Park)
My 87 came with two spray paint cans holding the headlights up.
Funny, mine came with a wood block and one of the hinges rusted.
quote
Originally posted by avengador1:
How about a screw drive system with limit switches, like a Genie garage door opener uses? I bet someone could make something to work that way and you could even adjust how high the lights would open with that system. Just an idea.
I kind of like the idea of the screw drive personally. You could have the motor turning the screw directly, like a drill, and use some type of trip sensor to stop the motor when the light reaches the desired position. Instead of using those breakaway gears like the current system, you could use a slipper clutch where the motor grips the screw so that you don't burn out the motor if something goes wrong.
Custom 85 SE/87 Coupe
