456 GT pop up lights going crazy.

not uncommon. Use the disconnect batter switch, which is a knob on the battery.

when done, disconnect the motor connectors on EACH light motor.

This is a quicker approach than the fuse

one of your relays in your fuse box is toast.

replace it with the rear window difuser/similar relay and it should be ok for awhile.

DO this FIRST before taking the other advice here....

rik

 

I had this problem on my '94 456 GT (non M ) whilst on holiday in Italy !! the headlights were winking up and down which was funning for a short while but then less so !!! There are other threads on this but, afaik the left and right motors are linked together via the wiring and each motor has diodes in it which sense the number of turns and stops the motor once it gets to the up position. I found by unplugging the right motor the left lamp would go up and down ok, I then unbolted the right mechanical linkage to the lamp unit itself and plugged the motor back in, at this stage the motor cycled a few turns and then stopped, I then reconnected the linkage with the lamp in the down position and they have both worked fine since then ?????!!!!! It would seem that the motor just needed to be reset. I had a similar thing with a new rear spoiler motor which is the same as the lamp lifting motors, in that when I first fitted it, the spoiler didn't work, but then I disconnected the linkage and unplugged then plugged back in the motor and let it cycle to the 'up position' and was well !!!

Hope this helps

 

exactly the same problem I had....they were winking: solution disconnect the power, replace the relay: SOLVED.

 

Thanks Rik. I'll have to file that away. Pretty easy to remember though.

 

I did not replace any fuses or relays, just unpluuged the lamp motor at the round connector on the front chassis near the headlamp and then plugged it back in, switched on the ignition and let it cycle till it came to rest.

 

Sonoma, when dissconnecting the relay, should I have the lite in the UP or Down position? tks

 

Sorry for late reply: What I did was, since they were 'winking' I had no choice but to disconnect in the down position. Took a couple tries. When one went down, quickly disconnect the round motor connector as NUMBER46 mentions.

Once one is down, go to the next one and disconnect that one when it goes down.

BTW: BE CAREFUL, in when I first performed this on a side road from the freeway exit, I accidentally got the motor wire caught in one of its respective hinge areas....with careful manipulation, I got it out ok without any damage, but it could have cut the wire entirely.

I barely made it to Santa Barbara and the beach hotel that evening, as I had no lights, drove to Lompoc and wife and I [she's a gear-head] diagnosed and found a way to replace the relay.

look at the two diagrams below: the first is, and I can't remember which, the relays in question....look at your manual for the correct ones.
the second pic is the area where I got my cord caught in my semi-panic mode.

rik
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Just to add to this, if the motors fail or do not work when out in the car, you can raise the lights manually by taking the rubber boot covers of the top of the lamp motors and winding the white plastic knob to raise each lamp and then just leave the lamps in the up postion, you can then switch the headlamps on and off as and when you need them and still have lights and use the car. If as happened to me, the motor just keeps going round and round unplug the round connector but be very careful that you do not get your hands/fingers caught by either the spinning knob !!! or in the mechanism.

 

are these the wires that i should dissconnect? tks
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Yes, that looks like the plug but, the photo is so close up it could be any one of a number of plugs on the car !!! It's the lead that comes out from the lifting motor on each side of the car.

 

Ya'~~~!!!

 

thanx guys, its working now!

 

Thank goodness for this thread. I just went into my garage and the left light was going up and down like crazy.
I thought my 456gt was possessed!!!
Did a Google search and this thread came up
Note- I had just replaced both relays last week as the left light hand been acting up...hesitating and staying up for 30 seconds after turning off etc.
So I turned the battery knob, squeezed the white cylindrical wire connectors behind each light, disconnecting them, sprayed in some electrical contacts cleaner spray, let it dry.
Then as the lights weren't sitting level, removed the rubber covers for the manual turn wheel and set both lights to closed at exactly the same position.
Re connected the wires, held my breath and turned on the battery. Lights stayed down, go into the car, turned on the ignition lights activated really smoothly up and down. Tried it 5 times and all good.
Back in love with Verde Mugello

 

Well so much for feeling pretty smug
Went to the car this morning and now both lights were dancing constant up and down.
Variety of things...Turned the battery off, pulled out the 3 relays: main power headlight, left power headlight and right power headlight, swapped these around, disconnected the headlamp motor wiring, gave everything a good clean. After a reset they would work normally then 15 mins later they would both start dancing again.
So I've pulled the relays and left it overnight with the battery on a tender and will get new relays tomorrow.
Earlier on the thread some mention running the motors disconnected from the headlamp - is this worth a try? I'm not sure of the benefit as the motor stopping is down to the diode and worm screw plate in the motor.
Alternatively, any advice on checking the the light stalk switch without removing the steering wheel? as the relays

 

I doubt the manual turn wheel would adjust the headlights indefinitely. That's more a mechanical linkage issue. Not to exclude a mechanical issue, looking at the relays:

How did you swap 3 relays around? They have different functions. There is also a 4th relay which determines whether the daytime flashers work or the pods go up.
If you can trigger the fault, try pulling a relay to get them to stop. Note: Relay D controls both headlights, so it's more likely that this is faulty than the other two.

The headlight pods need ignition key power to be at the light switch contacts. If the lights are dancing with the ignition off, it's unlikely that the column switch is faulty. Anyway, you could check for a stray 12 volts at relay D & P pins "86" with the ignition off, lights off.

 

Thanks Ian
Update - No stray volts on pins 86 D&P
Checked all 4 relays and removed all associated relays, main light, high beam low beam and then swapped for new
Still lights are dancing
Disconnected the LHS light motor and the RHS worked perfectly
Cleaned out the connections on the LHS again but when connected they still both dance
Would this suggest I either have a motor diode problem or a short somewhere between the two headlamp motors?

 

Sounds something like that. It could even be a broken contact "finger" which slides across the metal disk inside one of the motor/gearboxes. Perhaps this is shorting something out.

If the electrical connectors for the motor/gearboxes are half accessible and the wire colours are visible, you could check the wiring, but I'm not 100% sure of the internals.

Assuming it's something like this:

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With the headlights fully down, on the left side of the car, you should only be able to get continuity between two of the wires connected to the internal "switch" (assuming your ohmmeter leads are around the right way because of the diodes). e.g. check the resistance between the violet (Z) wire and the brown/black (MN) wire or, rather, the corresponding wire colours on the motor side of the electrical plug (may be blue and white?).
There should be one wire which isn't connected to the other ones (no matter which way the ohmmeter leads are around).

The motor wires should be ok.

Sometimes the pods do strange things if the mechanical linkages are not properly set up, but I assume you haven't been playing with these.

I've added a graphic for the connector in the diagram above. Can you confirm that the bottom two pins are for the motor? i.e. connected to the black and red/black wires (car side)

 

Correct the bottom 2 pins are black & red/black on the car side
I will check the continuity in the morning
No have not messed with the linkages
Really appreciate the help!!

 

Update, I can't access the motor wires on the lhs motor, so I'm thinking of removing the motor and all the rubberized coating and checking the wires and gearing.
In summary all relays are ok (I changed them)
When the rhs motor is connected it works fine.
When the lhs is added we get both dancing lights with ignition off.
When I have just the lhs connected I hear a chattering(I think is the term) of the relays but now no dancing and the light will not move when the switch is activated

 

You can repair these motors, by first removing all of the coating, followed by opening and cleaning of contacts. There's a steel disc inside that rusts if moist gets in (which eventually always will happen). But it's quite a lot of work!
There's one lampmotor for sale currently in Holland: https://www.marktplaats.nl/a/auto-onderdelen/verlichting/m1652410821-ferrari-456gt-nr-174159-headlight-koplamp-motor.html?c=9b26ed2a557deff636f4f8b9c5b7a618. No affiliation. And quite expensive.

 

You could probably disconnect the RH plug and do wiring checks of the LH side motor/gearbox from the relay panel. I have a full lighting wiring diagram.

It does sound more and more like the LH side motor/gearbox is faulty, but how much disassembly is required to fix the problem depends on the checks you do beforehand.

Having said that, you'll probably have to pull the motor/gearbox out anyway... and once you have done that, it's probably a good idea to clean up the internals and relubricate them.

 

I took the sealant off and one of the wires was broken. Re soldered it and checked continuity on each motor wire.
Connected back on the car and was still erratic.
Back to the bench and opened it up, yuck...full of crud but luckily the 3 contacts just needed cleaning and all was complete.
Gave it a good clean, put it back together and mounted on the car. This took ages.
Lights working but out of sync, one up one down so I loosened the bolt on the sliding hardware, ran the lights and they reset and worked in sync.
Next steps get some new sealant, remove from car, cover in sealant and refit.
Note it's amazing how quickly you can remove and re insert one of these when you've done it a few times.
That said much time spent resetting, removing relays turning the battery off and adjusting the mechanism.
Fingers crossed after sealant coat and re-fit it will still all work.
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