C2 Headlight Door Slow

[William P.]

The left headlight door on my 63 takes twice as long to open as the right one. Any sugestions on where to start would be great.
Thanks Willy # 20614

[Wayne K.]

Re: C2 Headlight Door Slow

Willy,

Outside of checking for good electrical connections I think that the only cure is to take things apart for a thorough cleaning of the mechanicals. This worked for me.

Wayne

[Ken K.]

Re: C2 Headlight Door Slow (Time frame?)

Being that we are talking about the speed of the headlight doors opening and closing, What is the normal? Is five-seven seconds good? or is that too slow? Should closing the doors be faster then opening? Thanks

[Bob R.]

Re: C2 Headlight Door Slow (Time frame?)

The doors will not close at exactly the same speed. They are electric and have seperate motors. The door on the right side of my 63 was slow. I fixed the problem and soon after the door on the left required a repair. So you may want to repair both at the same time. There are two reasons the motors are slow. First the old grease is dried out and second the aluminum drive gear is worn. The fix is not very hard. Remove the motors. Open and clean all the old lube out. It will probably be like hard plaster. Install fresh lithium grease. The aluminum gear that wears only rotates 180 degrees when operating. Remove the gear and rotate it 180 so you have a fresh section of thread to rotate. It should work fine for another 40 years.

[Philip Whitaker Member# 2024]

Re: C2 Headlight Door Slow

I had one that was slow. Upon removal of the drive motors, I noticed that the slow headlight assembly was hard to rotate by hand. After removing the headlamp assemblies I found that the bronze bushings on the slow door (hard to turn by hand) had frozen to the pivot shafts. This was caused by moisture that had entered between the bushing and the pivot shafts and caused a rust buildup between the two. The bushings were actually turning in thier retainers. Way too much resistance for proper operation. You may have the same problem. You'll know once you remove the drive motors. The strain on the drive gear also caused it to wear excessively. New ones are available from several sources and they are easy to replace.

Phil