headlight lights come up 2 inches and stop - 1971 Pantera

Clean switches and tighten wires. And check switch position.

bah; Since the light switch is providing the on off functions, I would inspect the 1.) limit switches and associated adjustments, 2.) teeth on gear that raises the light bar, 3.) gear within motor itself making sure no teeth are sheared that raises 2 inches but is not capable of catching the gear teeth to lower the light bar. Also, you may be able to determine if any teeth are sheared by manually cranking the light bar to see if the light bar will go all the way up.

There is obviously power getting to the 'up' side of the motor, so either a) the upper limit switch is bad and/or triggering early or b) something is mechanically stopping the lights going further. The headlight motor has the same plastic gear as the windows and can crack leading to this symptom where it will go so far and stop.

Firstly I would jump a battery to the motor terminals and check for up and down travel (checking both limit switches are not contacted). If you have full travel it's a wiring issue and you can work backward from there. All the wiring diagram are available at Pantera Place;
www.panteraplace.com/page107.htm

Julian

what is your Chassis Nr.?
old Pantera's use plastic gears ,alway's replace this.
It's the same gear on the window motor.
when there is a crack it dont turn further.
Simon

Headlight doors go all the way up and down with the manual crank so gears seem to be okay. Effort to turn the crank varied between hard to turn and easy to turn. My hands were like hamburger meat after a while. Crank is much easier to operate from the bottom with the car up on ramps.

Headlights themselves burn just fine. Door motor slows and strains before stopping. Coating external gears with moly grease didn’t make any difference. Any advice for next steps to locate and solve whatever is binding?

Also - If anyone is going to the Euro Auto Festival in Greenville, SC this weekend:

http://www.euroautofestival.com/

Stop by and say hello. I’ll be the guy with the red ’71 Pantera that needs to get home before dark :-)

Thanks for the help. Much appreciated!!

How are the bushings on the light bar?

http://pantera.infopop.cc/eve/...871075756#8871075756

check the adjustable threaded screw that hits the limit switch, make sure it's not tripping the switch early and stopping the motor. When the lights are in the on position and the bucket is only 2 inches up, jiggle the wires feeding the motor from the limit switch. You gotta play with it to figure it out, a 12 volt light tester in your best friend. good luck!

quote:

Originally posted by bah:
When headlight switch is moved to the 3rd position (1st=off/2nd=parking/3rd=headlights), headlight lights come up 2 inches and stop. The lights do come on. When the switch is moved back to 2nd or 1st position, lights go out but buckets stay up.

Have read prior posts on this (there's a lot of them) but none are my exact scenario. Most common advice seems to be clean switches and tighten wires.

So, where to start?

Thanks in advance for some direction.

Manually open the lights a bit if they are closed or close them a bit if they are open.

Look to see if the limit switch bumpers mounted on the drive gear are away from both of the limit switch levers that you can see with the hood open.

Lift the left front of the car to see if you have access to the motor drive wiring and if yes remove the wires.

Next using a test light, put one end on the wiring going to the motor to the test light (not the motor) and one end of the test light to a ground. Make sure the ground is good---(I usually check it with the cars battery first) Flip the switch on and off---in one position the test light should glow. Now do the same with the other wire and in the opposite switch position the light should glow.

Now you have checked the switch, fuse and relay. If the test light does glow when connected to one of the wires, see if the other side lights up with the light connected to the positive. This tell you there is a ground or power issue with one side of the relay. The relay changes the polarity to the motor based on which way it is energized. Make sure you can hear the relay trip when you flip the switch to the on-off position. It is located under the passenger dash area or on the left outer door if you have a later vin. You will know if there is a door on the drivers side opposite the fuse panel.

If the motor wires are acting correctly, it is a problem with the drive motor and or gear box it's self. What you are describing sounds like a broken drive gear in the box and the motor is heating up tripping the internal shut off. You will have to pull the assembly out to replace the gear or at least find out what is jamming up the movement.

It's not a bad job with a lay down radiator but you will need to pull the radiator if it's in the original stand up position.

If you need more guidance, please give me a call. It's easer to describe the procedures by phone.

Hope this helps. (419-344-8148)

Kirk

quote:

Originally posted by Kirk Evans:
It's not a bad job with a lay down radiator but you will need to pull the radiator if it's in the original stand up position.

My radiator is in the original position and I did not have to remove it to remove the assembly. It was a challenge but doable with the radiator in place.

quote:

Originally posted by Husker:

quote:

Originally posted by Kirk Evans:
It's not a bad job with a lay down radiator but you will need to pull the radiator if it's in the original stand up position.

My radiator is in the original position and I did not have to remove it to remove the assembly. It was a challenge but doable with the radiator in place.

Sorry for the confusion. I have not done this repair on an assembled car since maybe the 90s. These day I assemble restored body shells and the systems are pre-checked before they get installed.

I do not remember the tools required to pull the bolts with the radiator installed but best guess would be a 1/4 drive 10mm universal socket and several extensions. If you do have the tools and can not access the 6mm bolts with a wrench do to the location, you may be able to get better access by removing the front fans and upper radiator mounts so it will move back and forth improving the bolt access.

Husker's info is nice to know, thank you.

Good luck.

From your description of the motor straining and hand cranking being hard in part I still believe you will find this to be in the motor, a cracked gear, gummed up or bad brushes. I think the next step is remove the motor and inspect those aspects, run it off the car.

Julian

quote:

Originally posted by Kirk Evans:

quote:

Originally posted by Husker:

quote:

Originally posted by Kirk Evans:
It's not a bad job with a lay down radiator but you will need to pull the radiator if it's in the original stand up position.

My radiator is in the original position and I did not have to remove it to remove the assembly. It was a challenge but doable with the radiator in place.

Sorry for the confusion. I have not done this repair on an assembled car since maybe the 90s. These day I assemble restored body shells and the systems are pre-checked before they get installed.

I do not remember the tools required to pull the bolts with the radiator installed but best guess would be a 1/4 drive 10mm universal socket and several extensions. If you do have the tools and can not access the 6mm bolts with a wrench do to the location, you may be able to get better access by removing the front fans and upper radiator mounts so it will move back and forth improving the bolt access.

Husker's info is nice to know, thank you.

Good luck.

And it helps to have small hands!

I hope you will share what the correction was, I am sure your limit switch is the culprit.

Mine did the same as yours after 19 years of non-op storage. Cracked nylon gear. Replaced with the bronze one and worked like a charm. Not an easy replacement however.

Were you able to get the problem resolved?

Headlight up-date.

Something interesting happened with this fix. As expected, the drive gear was bad so I sent BAH a replacement. The new brass gear was installed but tied up in one area. BAH called and explained the problem---I asked some questions. Thinking something else was wrong but needed to see if a gear problem could be possible, I decided to test all of my gears on a window drive. Sure enough, 2 out of 8 were bad. Sent BAH a new gear, it was installed and everything is working properly now.

I have sent my supplier, who is another Pantera vender, a note to test his gears so this does not happen to another owner.

Thanks for sharing.

I guess I have become synical and rarely expect a new part to be as expected. However, it does seem like overkill to check tooth profiles on what I would considered a low precision gear.

BTW, what is the design backlash on that?

mine go up and down, but its noisy as hell and seem to be rough in the function and chattering as they go up,
i also changed the gear to the bronze style thinking that would be the fix , but still have the rough up and down movement, I was leaning to the nylon bushes on the complete cross arm assy... but im only guessing, now knowing what you've stated about the new gear I am totally unsure now .

See if the hand crank spring is broken and it is pushed in. That will make a crazy amount of noise. Also check to see if the drive gear is tight up against the lift bar teeth. That can make things chatter.