I just replaced one of my worn out plastic gears with a brass gear from brent franker. I let the epoxy dry for a whole 8 hours and just reinstalled the motor now. I turned the lights on and off when I was done so the motor retracted the light. After it retracted the light, the headlight I installed the brass gear on popped up and down while the other one just went down. I tested it a few more times and the last time I tested it the headlight with the new brass gear went up and down about five or six times. What's up with that? Anyone else run into a problem like that, or similar?

 

You mean that after the light went down it went back up again then down again, etc?

If so, sounds like the raise/lowe arm stop has broken off. Take a look at the headlight that is behaving normally and you'll see this tab/stop that I'm talking about. Now take a look at the light that is acting erratically and see if the stop/tab is missing... probably is. Yes, another somewhat common problem with the Firebird lights

If that is the problem then you can make a make shift tab/stop with a bolt and a couple of nuts. You just need to make sure you use the same diameter bolt/nut as the normal tab/stop to ensure the same stopping point as before.

email if you'd like if this isn't the problem and I'll try to help you troubleshoot it further!

 

Where is the raise/lower arm stop located? If you have a picture (shoebox perhaps) it'd be greatly appreciated!

 

I have pics but none uploaded to the site yet.

Just look down in there. You'll see the "arm" that connects to the motor shaft. This arm makes contact with a raise stop and a lower stop.

What is odd about your problem is usually the "lower" stop breaks and what happens then is the light will go down then immediately pop back up and stop. You say your light is doing this multiple times? I have never heard of that before so what I'm wondering is if for some odd reason BOTH your raise and lower tabs/stops have broke!

 

Hmm..yes I know the arm you're talking about. I'll have to take a look tomorrow when the sun is up.

The strange thing is, this has never happened before, and I didn't screw anything up by pulling the motor out or anything, this I know....

 

Nope, you probably didn't mess anything up. This is just one of those things that tends to happen... the tabs/stops get brittle and break. I probably get on average about one email a week or week and a half from people who say their gear doesn't grind like I describe on the site but the light goes down then pops back up. Every time it has been this tab/stop being broken off.

I'm currently working on updating the headlight page to include these other little oddities as well besides just the grinding noise problem.

 

And this is on the motor arm, the thing that connects to the motor spindle? I'll definitely have to take a look tomorrow...

 

Ooo Brent I just have a suggestion. When you tape the popsicle stick to the bonding agent you include in your shipment, try not to tape it to the instructions side. When I removed it I ripped off the instructions. It wasn't until later that night I was just looking through your webpage I saw that you had to mix the two reactants, so when I went out in the morning the motor hadn't glued shut.

 

DOH!

You are supposed to read the directions BEFORE you do the work. LOL!

Good suggestion though... thanks!

 

Well I've done the gear flip before so I was familiar with the process. And the tape you used was the US Postal Tape with their emblem on it, so I couldn't read through it. When I removed the tape it also tore a small hole in the package, so the grey bonding agent came out of the package and covered what was left of the directions as well...

Good thing you had the whole thing on your website, or I would have been like.."wtf is wrong with this thing?!!"

 

I've had a couple others tell me the tape ripped the epoxy packet. Doesn't happen often but after a couple people have told me this now, I guess it's time to package it a little different to prevent this in the future. Thanks for the suggestion!