got_hp?

i know other people have done this fix, but when i searched i didnt find any pics, so i took some when i did it this weekend.

there are two rubber/plastic stoppers that tell the headlight motor to stop when its up or down........eventually they might break off.........for me it was the "down" stopper, so my passenger side headlight would just spin a couple times and eventually stay up.

i tried superglue, and highstrenght plastic epoxy, to attach the broken stopper back to the car, but they both broke again after a few weeks.

the only permanent way to fix this is to replace it with the right size bolt.

pic of the broken stopper

pic of bolt for replacement sorry its blurry, but you get the idea...a regular bolt wont work....the head of the bolt needs to be as flat as possible to fit next to the motor, this one was blank (like a rivet top, can only be tightened by the nut) i found it at home depot.......i had to shorten it by a half inch so that it was the right lenght......too long and it will block the operation of the levers........too short and the arm wont hit it to stop the motor. you can pretty much eyeball the lenght you need, i didnt measure.

remove the plastic bezel around the light, and then the motor and prop up the light assembly......now this is the hard part (unless you have one of those elbow-style electric drills)......you have to drill a hole for the bolt to pass through, so it lines up as close as possible to the original location of the stopper. but its really hard to fit a drill in this location.......i didnt have the elbow style drill, so i had to use a regular drill and come at it from an angle. i ended up getting it almost perfectly located

pic of bolt inserted i used a regular nut, but with a locking washer thingy to keep it tight

reattach motor and assembly, and make sure everything works.

if the bolt isnt in the exact same place as the stopper, your headlight might stop above/below the hood line.

thats ok, just remove the top painted painted part of the headlight, two screws in back, two on the sides at front, and underneath it there are 4 hex-head screws that adjust the height of each corner of the top panel. pic of screws adjust it appropriatly, then reattach the top, put the light down, and check with the hood clsoed to see if it all lines up.
this was time consuming and annoying, because even though it looked like it was adjusted fine 3 times, when everything is back together, it somehow kept popping up higher than the hood, but eventually i got it right.

hope that helps someone.

got_hp?

btw, heres another thing i did while i was under there........the ignition control module is pretty sensitive to heat. when things get hot in there, it can cause a tiny bit of hesitation or stutter in some cars.

if you disassemble the bracket that holds the ignition coil and ICM, you can mount the ICM and its heatsink on the fenderwell to keep it well away from the heat. its a good idea to give it its own ground also. the only thing you need for this is a bit of wiring and barrell connectors to lengthen the wiring harness for the ICM so it reaches the fenderwell. its pretty easy, there are 4 wires and they are color coded. pic here

now when i put the ignition coil bracket back together, instead of attaching it right to the head (which gets hot as hell)......i spaced it away from the head to allow better cooling. just screw the studs into the head BEFORE putting the bracket on, then find an extra nut so you can reattach the bracket assembly and the ground wires. this gives about a 1/2" of air flow behind the bracket to keep it cool. pic of space

also, while doing all this, i upgraded all the factory grounds with larger wire, and added a ground to the engine block. grounding is more important than you think.