Porsche Enthusiasts Club Forum

Is there a common thing that happens that stops the headlamps going down once lights are switched off?
They worked ok when I first had the car delivered to me as a non runner a couple of weeks ago but now that it runs they no longer go down.
Strange coincident?
Have checked the connections on the headlamp motor and they seem fine and also the pins on the relay look good.
Sorry if this is a silly newbie question

Hi

Not sure if it helps but on a 928 , thats ALWAYS the relay....borrow one to try.....

All the best Brett

U can manual retract them, did u check the fuse? As you didn't meant that. Could manual wind down and see if they pop up by the electrics

Yes I have manually retracted them and they do pop back up again, will have another look at the relay.
Cheers

Had this with mine.... it is not always the relay!!

On mine I eventually found the wiring under the fuse to be suspect... but not before I stripped and cleaned up the motor, cleaned and greased the linkage, replaced the wiring from the motor to the main harness, fixed some perished cable in that harness, replaced the fuse, replaced the relay and tested the switch!!!

I am at work at the moment but someone online I found a wiring diagram and I eventually went through that until I isolated where my problem was

I had this on my catr the other day. Went up OK but would not then go down but the motor was intermittentley trying to retract them. Turned out it was the mechanism had jammed for some reason and a quick manual twist of the connecting rod under the bonnet did the trick.

The regulator part of the motor assembly has tracks on one side to power the lights upwards, and on the other side to power them down.

This means that if the lights are off, and you turn the knob one way, they will hit the track and power all the way up, and then power drive all the way down again. If you turn the knob the other way, they will hit the other track and power into the lowered position again.

If you have lights that will not power down and are stuck up, and turn the knob one way, they will power back up again against your movement of the knob.

Have you tried turning the knob the other way? It would be interesting to know if they stay dead until you get to the bottom and then once you pass the bottom they then power back to the raised position.

It could be that one of the contacts in the relay and connector part is broken, shorted out or even one of the wiper tracks inside the motor regulator is faulty, worn out or even dirty in part or all of its sweep.

Thanks for the input chaps! That gives me plenty to check out just as soon as I can find 5 mins to even open the bonnet.
Will report my findings!

Guys,

Apologies for resurrecting and old thread - bit I have this same problem - I can manually wind the headlamps down and they pop up when I switch on the lights -but don't go back down when I switch off.

This is almost certainly my fault as I changed the rubber cover on the motor relay today which involved taking the pins out of the connector to get them through the hole in the cover. After doing this, they didn't work at all, but I noticed the fuse had blown. Once replaced, they are working as described above.

I did check the pins are in the correct order (I photographed before dismantling). Do you think I may have blown the relay whilst messing about?

Ahhhh...

on reading up on Clarkes garage, late 944's have no less than 3 separate fuses for the lamp motor 2, 16 & 37 - it looks like a separate fuse for up & down.

I only checked and changed 2 so I'm hoping its just the "down" power feed fuse.

I think I'm talking to myself here - but just in case anyone is looking in the future, this turned out to be a poor connection on the underside of the fuse board.

Cant think why this was coincident with me tinkering with the other end of the wires but unplugging, cleaning and re-plugging cured it.

Pleased to hear you've managed to get it fixed, always handy to find out the cause of the problem in case its required in the future!