A lifetime ago I bought my first 914. It was 1978 in Omaha NE, I was 19 and got a '73 Zambezi 1.7L and only owned ot for about 3 months. It was already fairly rusty...

I bought it in the winter and it freezes in NE. It rained one day so water got into all the cracks and crevices of the body and froze that night, it was parked outside. Early the next day, I pulled the headlight switch and 'pop', my headlights would not rise and it was dark that time of year most of the day. I was not at all technically oriented then. So I had it towed to a shop and $350 later they said I had burned up the headlight motors. That was a lot of money to me back then. Since then I have often thought that maybe I just blew the #12 fuse, which covers both headlight motors.

Can anyone put my 30-years of curiousity to rest and tell me if they think that I did in fact burn up the motors requiring their replacement, or if it was more likely to be just a 10 cent fuse...in which case I got Reamed? I dont rightly know to this day, but I know the headlight motors dont fail very often.

I sold the car soon after mostly because I was scared of it...The clutch was starting to go out of it and all I could see was big $$$ for repairs...$$$ I did not have.

Those motors are designed to break through a quarter inch of ice. Don't they just trip out on thermal overload? Self-reset?

I am pretty sure there was a thin coat of ice on the car that day...doubt it was 1/4 in thick but I was able to get the doors open without much effort.

Any cold-climate owners have a similar experience?

Jeff,
I suspect your assumptions are correct. The climate in Germany is about the same as Omaha. Although, Omaha lacks the mountains they have. They would have no doubt engineered the headlight motors to overcome ice coating.

That picture is a hoot by the way...

i tend to agree with the above. i would think that you would blow the fuse long before the motor actually burns up ...

them motors are strong, they didn't put rubber fasteners on the eyebrows for no reason.
them motors can hurt your fingers pretty badly, if caught inbetween the cover and the body ...

Andy

Yeah, I had one of those motors break one of the triangle shaped mounts they hinge on. (1st testament to its strength) It happened while I was driving at dusk and I turned the lights on. I didn't know the hinge broke, I thought the relay was flakey. However, when I got home about 15 minutes later, I realized I had a very hot headlight motor. Due to the break it was jammed. After it cooled down, I threw in a spare hinge and the motor worked fine. (2nd testament to its robustness).

I don't know if you got ripped off, but this was my experience and my car was 34 years old when this happened, just last fall.

Fuse.

That's why it is always hard to find a good shop. You never know if they will just try to pull this crap if you don't know their reputation.

I had a similar thing happen in 73, when my 914 was still a daily driver. Ice strom hit while I was at work. Nothing really serious, but when I left work & turned the lights on one busted loose from the ice & the other didn't! Pounded on the closed one to try to breal the ice & it finally popped up. But the motor had gotten hot enough to partially melt the manual knob on the back. Drove home without incident, but the formerly frozen motor would not retract when I turned the lights off.

Figured I'd fried the motor, but called my brother who is an elctronics wizard. Brought his test equipment over & found that the motor, fuses & relay were OK - but found a fried diode in the wiring (affiliated with the motor wiring, but I can't remember where it is - sorry). Quick trip to Radio Shack for a proper diode, which he soldered into the circuit & it came back to life & has worked fine since.

I'm sorta surprised that the motor would keep trying to spin without overloading & blowing a fuse or relay. I still have that partially melted manual knob on the motor too. Always meant to get a new one........
Pat

You probably got screwed.

Reminds me of an old lady I know who went out to her car one morning and found it had become very hard to steer. She went to the nearby dealer who put it up on the rack, decided it needed the suspension rebuilt and gave her a 3 page estimate for $1600. she couldn't afford that so he went down the street to another shop who checked it out, inflated the tires to the correct pressure and sent her on her way- good as new!

The crooked dealership ended up going out of business a couple of years later because their salesmen got caught stealing from a mentally ill customer.

Although this is not 914-related, it is somewhat related to the conversation.

I had a 1993 Probe with flip up headlights, it was common for those motors to burn up if the headlights were iced over. The factory actually installed a button on the console to raise the headlights without turning them on. The manual stated you should raise the headlights and leave them up if ice was anticipated. I had to bang on the headlights one day because it was too iced over for the motors to break them free, but the motors still worked fine after that.

I think you got hosed.

I had a similar situation with the first 914 I purchased in 1978. I ran the car through the car wash and one of the headlight buckets didn't drain, and froze into a big block of ice. I didn't know what happened until I turned on the headlights that night and only one came up. I worked all night and tried to leave the next morning to find the battery was flat. After I got home I found the headlight frozen in the down position, and even with the switch off, the motor was still trying to cycle.

I cleaned the drain hole and never had another problem. I don't remember replacing any fuses either.

Possibly screwed....time to let it go......

... or just hunt down the guy and poke him in the eye.

Unless a DAPO wired the head lights hot. In which the switch would have probably fried first. These motors are far too stout to burn up before the fuse, relay, or switch.

Um, in the ZDF road test video, don't the headlights fail to raise when the car is in the deep freeze?

yepp, they sure do ...

http://www.914world.com/videos/ZDF_Autotes...h_subtitles.wmv

Andy