I had heard the Gen 2 motors were quieter than the Gen 1, but I had no idea! I wish I had done this a long time ago.... To anybody considering this swap, it's worth the effort!
Gen 1
Put the motors in the way I bought them, that didn't go so well!
After replacing the bump stops, worked like a charm!
Tomorrow I do the passenger side
[This message has been edited by NetCam (edited 08-11-2013).]
I totally agree! When I put the passenger motor in, I was blown away at how much quieter it is. I'm waiting for my driver's side motor to come in the mail. Although, I do have this problem where I have to turn on the lights (the Gen II HL won't flip up) (my Gen I is totally useless) then turn them off, and then turn them back on again and then the headlight rises. Do you have any ideas on why this would be happening?
I have Gen 2 headlights on my '86 GT and it's one of the better upgrades on my car. They're super quiet and work great. With the past Fieros I had that were 84-86 I always had Gen 1 issues so having Gen 2 setup is great.
I totally agree! When I put the passenger motor in, I was blown away at how much quieter it is. I'm waiting for my driver's side motor to come in the mail. Although, I do have this problem where I have to turn on the lights (the Gen II HL won't flip up) (my Gen I is totally useless) then turn them off, and then turn them back on again and then the headlight rises. Do you have any ideas on why this would be happening?
Ditto what NetCam said.
I had a similar issue on my 87 (well, mine would not shutoff on first try, I'd have to do it 2-3 times or press hard on the off button and keep it pressed until the lights completely down), turned out the switch itself was the issue, one of the metal prongs that gets tripped by the switch would not fully touch the metal base plate.
I don't have the pictures handy but I took pictures of what I did to fix the issue (some cleaning on the contact area of the prongs and some dielectric grease). I'll post them here when I get home tonight.
------------------ Ben 87 GT / 88 GT 84 Indy #1863
I had a similar issue on my 87 (well, mine would not shutoff on first try, I'd have to do it 2-3 times or press hard on the off button and keep it pressed until the lights completely down), turned out the switch itself was the issue, one of the metal prongs that gets tripped by the switch would not fully touch the metal base plate.
I don't have the pictures handy but I took pictures of what I did to fix the issue (some cleaning on the contact area of the prongs and some dielectric grease). I'll post them here when I get home tonight.
Ok, thank you both! It seems that the motor torque themselves down a little too tight, requiring two pushes to get them to work. After dinner, it'll be worth a look.
quote
Originally posted by Shonyman32:
Did you buy the motors or rebuild some?
I bought one off eBay, and put new bushings in it. The other one John316 gave to me and it worked great.
Passenger side is done.... It was quite a challenge, as I'm sure anybody who's done the rebuild before would know. To get the gear off on the passenger side you have to remove the screws that hold down the top part of the motor and lift the housing. In my case, both screws snapped off as soon as I tried to turn them. I managed to drill both of them out and replace with a nut, bolt and lock washer. This was no fun! I had to remove the top section completely to do the drilling, which entails the brushes coming out of their little homes and springs randomly flying around my dining room (It's OK, I live alone so the dining room table doubles as my workbench ). After a few hours of playing around and using twist ties to hold the springs back while I reassembled the motor, all is good in my Fiero world!
It was complete daylight when I started, finished the job wearing a head torch for light. The neighbours probably thought I had started some sort of mining operation.......
I'm going threw that same thing with my fiero headlight swap now my module went out and I bought a flawed wire harness now I have to change everything. Double check your harness and change your module. If your motor continue to go faster you might have to change the motors. Because the motor might slowly go out
My dad and I swapped out the module from his Firebird and it works way better now. There still is lag in the right motor though. But when the hood is up and the lights are turned on they both go up at the same time. Maybe there's a difference in amperage because the wire is so much longer. So we're going to get thicker wire and see what happens when we change it.
Mines used to do that too. Until I broke my motor down to see why it was doing that. And come to find out that my bushings were sand (wore out) witch was keeping them from coming up at the same time
My dad and I swapped out the module from his Firebird and it works way better now. There still is lag in the right motor though. But when the hood is up and the lights are turned on they both go up at the same time. Maybe there's a difference in amperage because the wire is so much longer. So we're going to get thicker wire and see what happens when we change it.
I wouldn't worry about the slight difference in speed. It might very well be related to the length of the wire but you might spend a lot of time troubleshooting something that is not much of a problem.
I'm glad you found the module was at fault. In my case, the switch was the issue.
I said I was going to post pictures, so here comes:
Unplug the switch:
Open the switch's case:
Remove the On/Off rockers:
Once the rocker removed, you'll see three prongs.
When the lights are down, only prong #3 makes contact with the base plate When the marker/tail lights only are on, only prong #2 makes contact with the base plate When all lights are on, only prong #1 and #2 make contact with the base plate.
In my case, there was a bit of gunk build-up on the base plate in the area where the prongs make contact and prong #3 would not make full contact unless I pressed hard on the switch. I cleaned up the old dielectric grease and cleaned-up the gunk build-up from the base plate as much as I could with a small flat screwdriver some electric contact cleaner and a small rag. Once this was done, my lights would close normally.
[This message has been edited by benoitmalenfant (edited 08-10-2013).]
My father and I found a fix for the headlight lag. What we did was we taped some pieces of wood onto the assembly where the arm rests on, so then it would be farther up, thus going up at the same time. It's not a permanent fix. We did find that the middle bolt holding the motor in was close to the top of the wood, so tomorrow we're going to Ace to get a longer bolt and some nuts to screw on so then it's more permanent. And as you can tell, I think the module is failing at a more rapid rate.
There isn't any chance that you have the middle bolt brushing against the actuator arm is there? Because the Gen 2 motors are smaller I had to cut about 1/4" off 2 of the 3 bolts so they didn't stick out. The only one I left alone was the one at the bottom of the motor because it's hidden under the bucket and won't get in the way of anything.
Here's the bolts and a couple of the bits I cut off with a Dremel
[This message has been edited by NetCam (edited 08-11-2013).]
