Headlamp Pod JJJudder

[KevW]

The nearside pod on my Excel has started to judder and make quite a racket when retracting. The strange thing is it goes into the up postition as smoothly and quietly as it always did.

I've had the headlamp out and spent an hour on the drive freezing my vitals off fiddling with the mechanism, winding it up and down manually and spraying everything with WD40 to no avail.

Has anyone alse come across this before or have any ideas what might be going on ?

Thanks

[amarshall]

What state are your bobbins in ?

[KevW]

As I've already said Angus, I almost froze them off !


If you mean the white nylon thingies they look OK, as does everything else. I can't see what is cauing the judder at all.

[amarshall]

I mean the 4 "white metal" bobbins that should be pop-riveted to the pods and bodywork respectively - the one the setscrews go through to form the pivot points.

It's not uncommon for setscrews to seize in the bobbins and for the rivets to shear off leaving the bobbins free to pivot & wobble in the GRP...

[KevW]

OK thanks, I'll check them next.

[Ian Dale]

Hi, I've got the same problem. Trouble with mine is they blew the 20 amp motor fuse (so they are up all the time at the moment). I had the motors all apart earlier in the year so thought I'd got rid of the problem (which I did for 6 mths) My personal thought is the motor is tight when retracting causing the bounce/judder. I'll be looking at them again this weekend and hope it's just a case of freeing them up again.
Good luck and any other thoughts would be appreciated

[AndyC]

As mentioned above, check bobbins, but consider the motor and gearbox on the motor as most bits are moving and reach the same point of alignment whether going up or down, except the motor which simply rotates the output shaft 1/2 turn to put them up, and the remaining 1/2 turn to put them back down.

Andy

[KevW]

Good news is the headlamp pod appears to be back to its normal smoothly operating self.

It fixed itself before I had a chance to.