Headlight Leveling Motor

[Guest mcyoungy]

Oh surprise something else that's kanckered. What a pile of junk.

 

These bolts are all Torx on the headlamps aren't they?

[Guest gooner52]

yes m8 there are

[Guest mcyoungy]

Ah well I guess I need to buy a set of Torx bits anyway.........

[Guest gooner52]

you can never have too many tools;)

[jwilliams]

Mine work intermittently so hope repacking them will help.

 

What grease did you use?

[Guest mcyoungy]

Oh what joy - out in the pouring rain taking the headlamps off the POS.

 

4 Torx bolts for each headlamp - at least I now know how they come off for when I need to change a bulb. No way is it feasible with the headlamps on the car. And 4 bolts on the grille. Why Torx? to make it more difficult, presumably.

 

How did the motor mounting screws get so rusty in 5 years? Inside the headlamp unit? Presumably they were made of rust in the first place.

 

Greased all the gears in the motor units. Now I have 2 intermittent motors instead of 2 totally non-functioning ones. But I do know that the headlamps are in the uppermost setting.

 

Then when I put it back together I discover that all the Spireclips are rusted as well so the bolts won't tighten.

 

Never again will I buy a VAG car.

[Guest gooner52]

did you set the level rotary switch to zero first

 

so are they now working fine

 

as for not buying a vagcom car,think your right,might be a mk3 galaxy next :lol: :mellow:

[Guest mcyoungy]

They are now better but not good. LH works smoothly IF it moves. RH is consistently juddery. I am happy that they are up anyway.

[Taliska]

Well I did this today too - when I finally managed to the the toad out of the headlamp unit...

 

The headlamp on the driver's side didn't move up or down, but when I freed it from the headlamp unit, took the back off the black plastic motor unit itself, then wired it back in and switched the headlamps on - I could see it whirring, looking as if it was trying to seek to a position.

 

I took the motor and pcb out of the holder, and the gearing all moved easily enough... I scraped the variable resister (slider) that presumably reports back to the controller as to how far it has twisted the motor and moved the headlamps, and when I put it all back together, it seemed to work fine.

 

The questions is for how long...

 

I'd imagine that in my case, it wasn't the cogs that were stopping it moving, but perhaps some oxidation of the variable resistor itself that was preventing it reporting a good reading getting back to the contoller.

 

Perhaps one should move the headlamps up and down every now and then (every couple of months?) just to give the resistor a rub? Who knows?

 

I guess it's not the most important thing to have working.

 

Taliska

 

P.S. My screwheads holding the motor on were pretty rusty too - I wonder if it's because of the damp air circulating around the back there. Next time I'll grease them up when I take it apart again.

Edited October 19, 2008 by Taliska

[gregers]

im assuming im suffering this problem now.missus parked the car up this evening and the noise comming from the drivers side headlight (loud whirring).gave the light a bit of a thump and the noise stopped,turned the lights off and then back on and the noise had returned,messed around with the thumb turn and lo and behold only the passenger side is working,

but whats with the constant noise,is there a short in the headlight?

[gregers]

yep i was,having spent a bit of time removing the bloody motor from the headlight,regreasing,refitting and finding the bloody thing didnt work out it came again :lol: on furthur investigation it appeared that the windings had gone as far as it could and had become jammed,so had to wipe all the new grease out,reset the windings and refit,put back on car and now working as well as the passenger side,so thanks to this thread its sorted.

[hartleyhare]

Add me to the list of failing headlamp motor mechanisms !! Just converted my Spanish Galaxy 1.9TDI to UK headlamps and sorted out the motors at the same time. With mine ( four of the three I have ) the tracks inside the variable resistor are being worn away by the movement of the contact brushes that slide up and down the tracks which is scarey since I hardly ever adjust the height of the headlights. Unsoldered and took the variable resistors apart and touched up the worn part of the tracks with electrically conductive paint then reassembled everything and hey presto - they work perfectly - without the extra grease. Not sure it wouldnt be simpler to just buy replacements lol !!

[hartleyhare]

Add me to the list of failing headlamp motor mechanisms !! Just converted my Spanish Galaxy 1.9TDI to UK headlamps and sorted out the motors at the same time. With mine ( four of the three I have ) the tracks inside the variable resistor are being worn away by the movement of the contact brushes that slide up and down the tracks which is scarey since I hardly ever adjust the height of the headlights. Unsoldered and took the variable resistors apart and touched up the worn part of the tracks with electrically conductive paint then reassembled everything and hey presto - they work perfectly - without the extra grease. Not sure it wouldnt be simpler to just buy replacements lol !!

 

 

Oops - I meant 3 of the 4 I have .... its that Friay afternoon feeling.....

[Scorpiorefugee]

I have just had fun and games sorting my levelling motors and this may help someone.

The first sign of trouble was first trip out in the new year when the offside lamp suddenly pointed down to where the fog lights should point. Having removed the lamp unit and the motor assy I couldn't see much wrong until I really stripped out the printed cct and found it was all corroded. This was almost certainly due to the fact that before I bought the car, 5 years ago, somone had removed the cover to fit a bulb and broken the clep and just tossed the cover down the back leaving it open to the weather. Several tries at cleaning and resetting only proved that the cct was us and every time I put it back the motor just cranked the light down until it pointed at the floor so I managed to find one on Ebay and it all started to work. Unfortunately, this now showed that the NS unit was only working intermittently and doing some very odd things. Having learned from the other, it was relatively easy to work out that the problem was the potentiometer which is used to sense the position of the mechanism. Swapping the one from the old one from the other side fixed it and I now have 2 working lights. This all supports what Taliska wrote 2 years ago.

 

What I learned was that, contrary to a previous suggestion that a bit of grease is needed, the nylon gears don't need it but the grease added may have got onto the potentiometer track and effected a temporary fix. Another thing to try is to rub a soft lead pencil on the track.

 

Another point worth knowing is that the motor unit is only used over about 20% of it's range (unless you get a fault like mine) and this means that the wear and tear is concentrated at one end. Also, if like me, you seldom adjust thse things, the potentiometer never moves apart from every time you switch on it does a little shuffle and the overall effect is that it wears out in just one place. In my case, both of the originals had clear marks in 2 places indicating that the units had spent a long time without being moved so that probably means that I shall soon have to replace the NS unit which I repaired.

 

One final piece of advice, adjust them regularly and, if one packs up, bite the bullet and replace it, preferably both, replace all of the bulbs, get the beams adjusted and make sure the covers are watertight.

Edited January 23, 2011 by Scorpiorefugee

[daddyfixit]

trying to keep away from kids & the mrs yesterday;

 

so removed both headlamps, found nearside wheelarch access panel is missing so behind headlamp is filled with years of sh=te off the road !!!

 

rusted T25 screws caked in said road dirt were a pain!! headlamps out and stripped both motors, drivers side works but passenger side doesnt (probably due to being caked in crap)

 

also refitted air cleaner snorkel which looks like its never been attached where it passes through o/s wheelarch and meets air filter box, hope its quieter to drive now ??

 

will price a new motor through ford trade club, as never see galaxies in scrapyards up here ????

 

but another job done using advice from the site

 

thanks again

Edited April 8, 2012 by daddyfixit

[MadBaz]

New motors are available HERE, for about 39.00 Euros inc VAT & shipping. Cheaper than my local stealers.