QuestionI have a 1990 lebaron that has inoperative headlight covers, I need to know where to start troubleshooting this system, the motor makes no noise or attempt to move. I did however move the covers up and down manually by turning the knob on the bottom of the motor. I would suspect a bad relay but I don't have any idea of component location. I have a background in aviation maintenance so with some guidance I think I can find the problem. Thanks Jay
AnswerThis is not a condition that I've had hands on experience with but I'll try and walk through a few things with you to get you start.
The headlamp motor itself has two wires going to it. A Dark Blue with a Yellow Tracer (now on referred to as the L31 cicuit) and and Brown with a Yellow Tracer (now on referred to as the L30 circuit). These two wires lead back to a 10 pin connector supposedly black in color. Both the left and the right side headlamp motors use the same wire colors and even splice back in to each other.
These L30 and L31 circuits lead back to the "concealed headlamp control" which is located on the left side of the steering column. I would imagine that's the switch itself to make the lights come on but it's been a while since I've been in a Lebaron.
The "control" has what looks to be a 10 wire connector with pin 1 being the L30 circuit and pin 6 being the L31. Power to this is provided through pin 10 which has a 30 amp circuit breaker (fuse cavity 3, 30 amp CB) between this "control" and a splice (I would assume leading back to the battery) Pin 5 is a ground circuit (z01, black wire).
The two remaining wires (L52 gray with a red tracer and L51 Gray with a Pink Tracer) go back to the Body Control Module (big frown after realizing that). From inside the BCM everything will get scrambled and I haven't a clue how to explain or even find info on that. So... let's go back and start checking stuff.
Forget about all the mumbo jumbo above except the two wire connectors at the motors themselves. Most of the window motors, power antena motors, and as I look at this diagram the headlamp motors only have two wires. Neither is a dedicated power or ground until made so for a brief amount of time. What you will want to do is apply power to one side and ground to the other and force the motors to move one way or another. If they don't move then the motor(s) are dead. To which you will have to either buy replacements OR leave the pop-ups open all the time thus causing excessive drag, lowered gas mileage and prevent you from driving on the autobahn. :)
Next I would want to see if you're getting power/ground to that same connector on the harness side. Using a simple test light I would put on end on L30 and the other on L31. Have someone hit the switch and see if it lights up. Make sure your light illuminates when you attempt to turn off the lights as well as this will insure power and ground are present in both directions.
I would make sure that the Red wire (F35 at the "Control") has power as well and make sure you've got a good ground at the Z01 circuit as well. Now, I mean make sure as in use a test light. Don't start chasing wires and trying to find ground locations and what not.
That's all I can give you right now (my fingers hurt actually) so I'll need some feedback from you and your findings in order to proceed further. Also, notice how I said use a test light and not a multimeter. The test light is a load device. Not as much as those motors in question but a multimeter will NOT apply a load to the circuit so it's not always the best tool for this type of testing.
Let me know.
Doug
