355 headlamp pod going strange

Relay or relay seat (remove relay & replace pushing hard) most likely

 

There's an adjustment in there. It's possible that the potentiometer needs to be aligned. Mine is a bit off and needs adjusting too. Sometimes after a drive on a rough pavement, it will close itself fine.

 

Been there done that.

It is the internal contacts of the motor. The metal disk inside rusts or corrodes just enough to interrupt the electrical connections as it turns. When it stops you twist the black knob on top and suddenly it starts again (becuase you forced the contacts past the corroded parts of the disk).

Easy repair actually. Hard part is getting the motor out, but that is not too bad.

I have three extra motors on my work bench....all in the same condition. I was going to clean them up and re-sell them.

I thought I posted pictures on this before....

 

OK. I found the pictures and they were kinda hard to see. I just shot these in an effort to show things better. It is really tough to photograph and explain....but I will try.

The up / down function is triggered inside the motor assembly. There are leads that provide the current to turn the motor. As the motor turns, the current travels across a disk. Once the disk rotates the movement is stopped electrically by having the lead hit a drilled out section of the disk. Once it arrives at this hole, the current stops and so does the motor.

The problem we see occurs when that internal disk is dirty and hinders current flow. The headlight stops prematurely. We twist the knob and the leads travel past the dirty / rusty spot and then keep going. The worse the disk the more twisting of the black knob we do,.

Initially, to fix mine I bought a pair of used headlight motors from a 1999 Fiorano with 3000 miles on it. These motors worked worse than the one I pulled out.... so I opened them up.

After many years of car washes and never cycling the headlights, the disks simply rusted up. I cleaned one up installed it and it works like a champ.

Pictures #1 below show what you will see once you peel away the outside packing. Careful, see the diode in there?

The second image shows the inside. You can see the leads on the inside top of the housing and the rusted disk below where the leads need to travel.

The rest is pretty self explanatory.
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As far as I know, there isn't one. The motor is either up or down.

 

I hardly ever drive at night as I just haven’t had the need. So today I decided to turn the headlights on just to make sure they still work after my HID install last year and what do you know the lights work but the passenger one is having an issue with going back down. When I turn the little manual wheel just a bit it then goes down by itself. After reading a couple threads it sounds like the same problem here.

 

I have this identical issue with my right headlight. Great thread and timely.

Watson: 1) How do you get to the headlight motor most efficiently?
2) How did you clean the disk?

Thank you

Now if I could get such an easy explanation for the airbag light....

 

Take the motor out from the bottom. I forget but I think three mounting bolts and then the connection from the motor center to the arm that swings the pod.

The arm is a turnbuckle design. Once you reinstall the motor, you set the pod height with that.

There is no "motor adjustment" or potentiometer.....shut the headlights off and the motor positions to "down". Adjust the turnbuckle so the light pods sits as you desire and tighten it all down.

...as for cleaning the disk I used some 150 grit sand paper on the nasty stuff and 3M scotchbrite pad to shine it all up.

I put some grease in where the gears are and put it back together.



Pretty easy actually.