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headlight questions

fordgtfordgtMember
My 74 headlights make a grinding noise up and down so I took out the motor & gear assembly to clean/lube them. I wanted to test the motor so I hooked it up with jumper wires to a spare battery. The motor turned fairly well but it is still noisey. However, the jumper lead attached to the ground cable started smoking and all of the insulation melted. Is the motor bad or is a car battery too strong. I seemed to remember Jack saying that it was okay to test this way in an earlier post but I couldn't find it. I plan on getting a new motor and I would like to replace the 2 plastic gears associated with the emergency manual bypass knob. Does anyone know if the gears are available?
thanks and a Happy, Healthy & Safe New Year!!

Gary
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bosswrenchbosswrenchMember
The headlight motor (actually a Jag windshield- wiper motor) is designed to be un-grounded. But its wired such that the case would be 'hot' except for a tiny complex bakelite separator on the bottom, that keeps the thing electrically isolated. Until the separator delaminates... The fix I used is to delete entirely the plastic separator, hook the wires up as stock and tie-wrap the hot wire so it can't touch any metal. Why they did it the way the thing was OEM, I have no idea...All the separator is, is a convenient wire anchor. Water & road-slop gets in there and suddenly, you've got smoke!
bosswrenchbosswrenchMember
Whoops, I didn't finish your question.... the headlight erection motor/gearbox is identical to the ones in your doors, for the power windows. A brass 'window gear' will fit into the headlight gearbox just the same. Do this, and the manual bypass knob can be left alone. BTW, I'm not the one that posted jumper-wiring the limit switches. Matter of fact, I'm the least-apt at Pantera wiring fixes, except those I've been forced to do to our car! If the motor is fully-up (or down), and you jumper things wrong, full power will go to a motor that is mechanically stalled (the buckets are against the fenders), giving you the scenario you experienced with melted insulation.
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