nathan944

on my 87 944S the headlightrs are acting freaky!!! Right now the fuse is pulled but if you put the fuse in the lights flip up and down....up and down.... and dont stop unless the lights are turned on inside the car. When the lights are turned on they stop in the correct up posistion. When the lights are turned off however they begin flipping up and down, even with the key out. The only way to stop it is to pull fuse #2. I replaced the relay witht he one from my 83 and same problem. Please help me because my hands are fatigued from cranking the headlights up and down manually.

-Nathan

Porsche-O-Phile

Mine used to do that. . . Sort of. They'd "wink" once or twice when I shut the lights off. I cleaned all the linkages and degreased / cleaned all the stuff in front of the radiator real good with a pressure washer and some Simple Green. I also pulled the nose off when I had to fix the headlight squirters and cleaned a bunch of other stuff (including wiring) until it was all spotless in there. Since then the headlights have worked perfectly, although I'm not 100% sure what the former problem was attributable to - maybe a dirty microswitch in the linkage or something (?) Someone that's taken the headlight articulation mechanism all apart might know if there are microswitches in there (I imagine there have to be) and where. I'd start with that.

Yabo

One thing to check is if they are making ti all the way down, or if they are binding on something. I think the motor might reverse if it gets to a tight point, kind of like some cd drives will go back in if you keep them from extending fully?

BigRed

That's awesome...keep it that way! Can you get a video?

Bret 944

Mine were doing that too. I think they were binding like Devon said, 'cause I notice a clean spot they had been rubbing a little metal piece on the passenger side, bent it over a little, and problem solved.

testarossa_td

Herbie upgraded

I suspect binding as well.

mroberts

When mine did that, replacing the relay fixed the problem - Whenever I turned them off they woudl keep going up and down until I turned the ignition off.

icat

It's called the Herbie effect and it's the relay that is doing it. You can take the relay apart and clean it or simply replace the relay. If you elect to clean it, be advised that the unit is not designed to come apart - but a bit of wiggling with a screw driver will do the trick. Once apart, use lighter fluid on a business card to clean the contacts. You may need to bend the contacts slightly to make sure the contacts only close when needed.

Carrera51

Mine did this once. The lights were out of sync with the motor. What I did was raise the lights, then disconnect the power to the headlight motor (the plug is on the side closest to the pasenger side fender under a rubber cover). Pull the rubber cover off of the top of the motor and turn the round **** until the lights go all the way down. You will know because if you keep turning too far, they will start to come back up. Once the lights are all the way down. Plug the power back in, put the key in and turn the lights on then off. They should go back down.

testarossa_td

Now that you mention it, I did have a problem similar to this once, after pulling the front off a Turbo, I had the headlight motor off by a few splines. Of course that was also the binding issue.

Chris_924s

BTDT. Address this problem ASAP!

Fix it before the wiring overloads and you have to replace the switch, wiring, interior loom.
If you notice the LEAST bit of white smoke from under the dash- it's too late. Time to replace electricals.