At this point if your garage in not heated or air conditioned, you can now retire to the confines of your home. Some of you guys have garages that I would pay rent to live in so you may be able to keep working right where you are!

Remember that tab that held the power connector in place? Remove it now! You can use some needle nose pliers to squeeze its base and remove it from the car. Then, plug it into the underside of the power connector so you don't loose it. Do this now, or you'll have a backache later trying to remount that connector.

I forgot to put this in when I originally created this how to. Check out the picture below.

http://pc-surgeon.net/images/cforum/waterleak_bulb.jpg

If you're wondering how water gets to your front marker and blows the bulb, now you know. The bulb has actually burned through the housing. GM left this other gaping hole which I am going to cover with some heat resistant tape.

The other picture here just shows were your fog lamps and horn are in case you were wondering.

http://pc-surgeon.net/images/cforum/fog_lamp.jpg



Part II, The Motor Repair

At this point you should take the time to do something that saved me a major headache when reinstalling the headlight. Remove the bulbs. If this has never been done in your car before, this is the time to try it. Once the headlight is mounted back in the car, getting those things loose (especially if they've never been replaced) is a major PITA! I had to rearrange my harness after getting everything reinstalled and this meant unplugging the bulbs. Had I not done this while the assembly was out of the car, I probably would have busted my knuckles and kicked the car in frustration (okay, maybe I would have kicked my other car but my knuckles would have been a mess).

These lights come out like most car lights, with a twist and a pull. The trick is, they don't both twist the same way. I fussed with these things for 20 minutes, scared I was going to break something but I finally got them out. Here's the solution. The high beam bulb twists counter-clockwise to remove while the low beam bulb twists clockwise. Mine were stubborn as hell but they finally came out. Learn how to do it now and save yourself a headache later. Note: Unplug the harness from the bulbs before doing this.

http://pc-surgeon.net/images/cforum/hlight_assembly.jpg

This next suggestion is going to save you some major money, and if you're as **** about your headlight beams as I am, some major aggravation. This next picture explains what you should do in detail. I cannot stress the importance of doing this now! After you've reinstalled the headlight, oiling this assembly is very difficult. Also, if you break the vertical adjustment screw, you're screwed. You have to buy another headlight assembly and they are not cheap!

http://pc-surgeon.net/images/cforum/hlight_assembly3.jpg

Now you're ready to remove the motor from the headlight assembly. There are 3 screws and 4 nuts that hold it together. Pretty self-explanatory.

http://pc-surgeon.net/images/cforum/motor.jpg

Now you're ready to disassemble the motor. This was kinda tricky but I lucked up and had some pretty good success. Note: If you have a 97 -99 (possibly 2000 also), all you need to do is remove the 3 bolts that hold your cover on and you're inside the motor. 2001 - 2004's get to have the fun of prying the cover off and gluing it back on. First look at this picture of the cover removed.

http://pc-surgeon.net/images/cforum/cover.jpg

As you can see, there are tabs that are located around the cover. Using a very thin flathead screwdriver, work the tip into the areas where there are no tabs. If this repair has never been done to your motor, you'll find that the cover will slowly come off. Just take your time and don't get in a hurry. This is the part of the job that requires the most patience. I found that starting at the bolt post and prying gently in that area produced the best results.

http://pc-surgeon.net/images/cforum/motor_pry.jpg

Once you get the cover off, you'll be greeted by this:

http://pc-surgeon.net/images/cforum/bad_gear.jpg

Not only can you see the missing teeth and the stripped gear, you can also see that water had obviously been getting inside the housing, thus all the rust (this is also why my cover was pretty easy to get off). Go ahead and pop out the old gear and clean all the chewed up teeth and old gear grease out of the housing. Get some fresh grease and lay it on the shaft of the motor.

If you're using Brent's gear as I suggested above, then you won't need the rubber bushing that comes with the factory design. If yours is in good shape, keep it and offer it up to the forum members who might need it. Like I said, you can't buy just the rubber insert by itself.

As you reassemble the housing, pay attention to the way the shaft sits on the gear. Make sure that it is flush with the face of the new gear. Once you get it orientated correctly, it will sat flush.

http://pc-surgeon.net/images/cforum/newgear_seat.jpg

One thing that Brent talks about on his website in great detail is the possibility of having this failure happen a second time because of the tabs that hold the motor assembly together. This is something that you need to check at this time so that you are not a victim of a second failure. Look at the picture below.

http://pc-surgeon.net/images/cforum/motor_tabs.jpg

There are 4 tabs that you need to check to ensure that the motor is being held together. Check them and give them a tap to make sure that they are tightly seated. Don't go beating on them a lot, just a few taps to make sure that they are flush up against the housing.

Brent's gear kit includes some Double/Bubble Epoxy for reattaching the cover to the motor housing. In his instructions, it states that you will need to wait at least 24 hours for this stuff to fully set. Now being the impatient one that I am, I wanted no part of waiting 24 hours so I asked him if I could use something else. He said he was sure something else would work fine and off to O'riley's I went. This is what I came up with.

http://pc-surgeon.net/images/cforum/epoxy.jpg

This stuff sucks. Use the glue that comes with your kit. Take time to test yourself putting the cover back on a few times before you actually put glue it on. It's a little tricky. Once you get the cover glued on, clamp it down with some clamps and wait your mandated time for the glue to fully dry.

http://pc-surgeon.net/images/cforum/housing_clamps.jpg

Now reattach that puppy back to the headlight bracket and head for the garage! There are some key things that you must ensure before reattaching the headlight bracket to the car so pay attention to the next section.

Part III, Reattaching the Headlight Bracket

The first thing you want to do is look at the other set of headlights. Notice how the harness is run. Notice what the harness goes around, goes behind, and goes over and under. This very important because if you run the harness the wrong way, it won't sit properly and you could end up chopping the thing up with your bracket arms. This is why you only disassembled 1 headlight. The other being properly mounted is your template to go by. I hope if you're reading this, that you paid attention at the beginning of the post and didn't remove both headlights. This saved my but big time because I couldn't get any good pictures of how the cable is run.

WARNING!!! As you put everything back together, THE LAST THING YOU SHOULD DO BEFORE TURNING ON THE LIGHTS AND SEEING IF YOUR REPAIR HAS WORKED IS PLUG UP THE POWER TO THE HEADLIGHTS!!!

A couple of forum members have posted incidents about the headlights closing while they had their hand in the cavity. Do not plug that power cable in until the very last possible moment. If you need to readjust the harness or for any reasons have to stick your hand back inside that cavity, you don't want that headlight coming down on your hand. I hear it is painful as hell and not a pleasant experience. Plug the power to the headlights up as the very last step!

Well folks, that brings us to the end of "War & Peace", the Junkman's version. For those of you who know what you're doing, this was probably the longest waste of your time ever spent. For us shade tree mechanics, I hope that it was the motivation that you needed to tackle this job yourself. DON'T PAY A STEALER TO DO THIS! It was rather easy now that I know how to do it and my second gear order has now been placed. Heck, I might need to read my own instructions again!

The Junkman

(Link back to part 1) (http://www.smokinvette.com/corvetteforum/showthread.php?t=8270)

Well after reviewing your post, :iagree: I'm going to order the new gears.
They look much stronger and should hold up.
After pulling in the garage the other night, the Headlight motor just kept running. :wtf: And I was all ready to head out for Corvettes At Carlisle this week.:willy_nilly: :willy_nilly:

Man I thought I was over this when I sold my C4. :thud:

Thanks for the information and your time posting it. :cheers:

Junkman Thanks For All The Information On This Repair And The Time Posting It. :thumbsup:

I Did The Job With A Few Different Steps, Seeing I Use To Be A Line Mechanic For GM And Have Thinner Arms And Hands To Fit Wear Others Can't.
I used A Heat Gun To Assist The Removal Of The Glued On Cover Which Made The Removal Painless And No Damage.
I Got A Bronze Gear, Next Day Delivered From Mid America Motorworks At A Complete Cost Of $82.98 Tax Shipping/Handling. The Job Only Took About Two Hours. Had No Problem With The Epoxy That Came In The Package. I thought I Was Over Doing This Type Of Repair When I Traded In My C4 Years Ago. Thanks Again. :thumbsup:

Man!! I would liked to have that info had to fix one of mine a small part of the field came off & jamned the motor. gotter done. invented some new cuss words though!!

Glad this is helping those who needed it. I wish I had these instructions when I did mine! :doh:

For reference, one dealer (stealer?) in Orlando quoted me $477 to do the repair, and another quoted $553.

While I can understand that GM wants me to "personally" bail them out, I think this is definitely DIY. The first one I did, I used the nearly original style nylon gear -- it was quick to get, and only $32. The second time (other light), I went with bronze.

For reference, one dealer (stealer?) in Orlando quoted me $477 to do the repair, and another quoted $553.

While I can understand that GM wants me to "personally" bail them out, I think this is definitely DIY. The first one I did, I used the nearly original style nylon gear -- it was quick to get, and only $32. The second time (other light), I went with bronze.

...and here's the deal. They were simply going to replace the motor. The motors run around $250 new. Where the hell do they get $477 - $553 from that? You know how long it takes to remove the motor because you did it already. Now you understand why I call them "stealerships"!

I got some great additional tips to this DIY.
After having to replace one of the gears myself a few months ago, everything seemed to be working just fine. Then all of the sudden last night my left headlight started acting up again. It would pop up great but when I cut the lights off. The driver side light would go down all the way then come back up about half way and stop. I had no idea what was going on. I thought I was going to have to replace the gear again but I thought I'd talk to my mechanic at the local corvette shop. He said that when the light goes up and down the swing arm that controls it hits a bump stop when it is fully up and when it is fully down. He said sometimes those bump stops just fall off or get worn out and you have to place them. The problem is that GM doesn't just sell the Bump Stops. Luckily he's worked with them enough that he had some laying around in his shop. He said he always keeps little things like this when he has to do a complete repair or something like that.

Well I decided that before I had him do any work on the headlight that I would take it home and check it out a little closer myself, since I had alreay done some repair work on the light anyway and was a little familiar with it. Sure enough, one of my bump stops had gotten worn out. All I had to do was replace it and the light worked great. Just a quick and easy fix that didn't cost me a dime. AND I had some crazy glue around the house, so I just added a little bit of that just to make sure the bump stop didn't fall off at some point. Here are some pics that JUNKMAN took that show's the Bump Stops...
http://i271.photobucket.com/albums/jj128/nicstockman/Corvette%20Mods/BUMPSTOPS-1.jpg

http://i271.photobucket.com/albums/jj128/nicstockman/Corvette%20Mods/BUMPSTOPS.jpg

Hope this info helps. It sure saved me a ton of time and money!

Thanks for the additional info Gamecock! :thumbsup:

Great tip. I'm inspired.