NC928S4

My over retracting headlight problem has been resolved. The root cause was a worn out/stripped spline shaft on the headlight motor.



Not always, but occassionally the lever that attaches to the shaft would slip. After several On/Off cycles of car and up/down of lights the "Off/retracted" position would be in the wrong position as far as the switch in the headlight motor was considered. At startup the motor would move the switch to the retract position even though the lights were already in the fully retracted position. This would cause the lever to over-rotate and crash into the A/C coil.

I replaced the headlight motor with one that had a nice crisp spline and now the headlight mechanism works as expected. It's a bitch getting the motor, lever arms positioned properly.

Original Problem
==========
I'm having a weird problem with the headlights randomly deciding that they are not fully retracted.

The head lights go up and down with the turn of the switch as expected. Occasionally, while driving around in broad daylight the lights will decide that they are not fully retracted and decide to retract until the lever arm on the headlight motor rotates itself into the A/C condenser be it jams and stops. I have no idea when this auto retraction happens until I get out of the car and inspect the position. Over retraction happens randomly.





Over retracted headlight

Attempting to turn headlights on when it is over retracted causes the lights to go on but they do not raise to correct position. Basically lights pointing straight up.

If I manually adjust lights to correct retracted position things work fine. Multiple switching on and off cycles never seem to over retract.

Any ideas why the headlights occasionally decide to adjust their retracted position? I have not done any repairs in months so this is one case where I haven't hosed something up.

I now need to fix a gaping hole in the condenser but I'm not going to do that until I figure WTF is going on with headlights.

NC928S4

Bump - I'm getting a sinking feeling nobody has ever encountered this issue.