Restoring Headlight Motors

[Ginger pig]

All,

Has anyone removed and completely stripped the headlight motor. I have started to dismantle and clean but cannot figure out how to remove the plastic manual lift dial. Can anyone tell me if the plastic 'turner' is screwed onto the commucator or pressed on and how do you remove. Currently have the bushes out of position and it would be very difficult to replace the commutator without remove this simple plastic component?

What chemicals would you use to clean the components if any and what lubricating fluid if any?

[mc21.8]

you can buy electrical componant spray cleaner,<or carb cleaner would do>bearing grease and heat sink grease where aplicable

think they are stuck on maybe some have screws in the end i thought..!!??

not much heelp here sorry

[Guest]

Funnily enough, I started doing this job last weekend too.

The plastic knob on mine (81 Turbo) are held on by a large flat blade setscrew. Undo this and the knob comes off quite easily (for a 30 year old car!).

I'm cleaning them in low odour kerosene and this seems to also be doing a fairly reasonable job of stripping off the rubberised paint coating and dissolving the old rubber grommet where the wires come out.

Grommet is an easy fix, they are for sale 10 a penny, so no worries there.

My biggest worry is that I do not have what you might consider to be a 'matched pair' as the crank arms are different. I huess that explains the differing response rates for each pod...

When you put them back together a bit of grease on the bearings/gears wouldn't go amiss and of course a lick of nice new paint never seems to make them look any worse!

Rob T.

[Ginger pig]

Cheers guys,

Nice car Rob!

My plastic nobs do not seem to be held on by anything though.....certainly no visible retainer.

I will try and gently lever it off.

[dodge1979]

I stripped my tr7 ones a few years back. Are they not the same motor unit? Not that this helps cause I cant remember how I did them now...but it was straight forward and I just used normal grease on reassembly.

[andydclements]

The early Esprit ones and TR7 are the same, the later esprit ones are the same as a GM car , Fierio/ Ferio/ something like that.

[910Esprit]

I guess the bearings are probably sintered (do they look like pockmarked brass?, if so, soaking in oil overnight may be the best bet

[Rich H]

The knob can just be levered off.

When you take it to bits there is a ball bearing on the end of the main worm shaft - don't loose it!

Also reassembly is a pain as the brushes need to be pulled back with something during assembly, I used cotton thread.

Mine was the thrust bearings all rusted up, cleaned it all up, regreased ti all with silicone grease (Waterproof) and away they both went!

[s4simon]

Here's a couple of pics I took when I stripped mine some 8 years ago.

[Ginger pig]

Thanks guys,

I have a much better understanding now.

Thanks for the pictures Simon.

[johnpwalsh]

Mine work but the nearside does not do down when switched off.

[ramjet]

So if we call one movement a 1/4 and it doesn't do that, then yours only work 3/4?