Headlight doors

[moparmark]

              Hey there,

                 Had a question for you guys.My headlight doors open fine on my 69 charger but will not close.What is the usual cause of this? Has anyone else seen this happen?

              Mark

[JimShine]

Trace the vaccum lines. Start at the actuators and work your way to the switch. The first thing I would do is with the car running and lights off, unplug the hose at the actuator for the down movement and see if you feel any vaccum through the tube. If yes, then it is in the actuator, if no then you should move up to the T fitting, unplug that and see if you feel anything. You could have a bad vaccum switch, a clogged tube, a leak at a T fitting, hole in a hose,  bad actuators, you just need to go through each component. There isn't much to it, so you should be able to have it figured out in short time.

A really quick way of testing the actuators is by swapping the two tubes coming from the firewall at the T fitting near the radiator. If the actuators are fine, the reverse polarity will close them when the headlights are on. If this works you can rule out the actuators and focus on the rest.

[MaximRecoil]

I know this thread is old, but I'm having a similar problem; except, my headlight doors open when you turn the headlights on, but they don't open "fine"; they open very slowly. They do not close when you turn the headlights off.

Trace the vaccum lines. Start at the actuators and work your way to the switch. The first thing I would do is with the car running and lights off, unplug the hose at the actuator for the down movement and see if you feel any vaccum through the tube. If yes, then it is in the actuator, if no then you should move up to the T fitting, unplug that and see if you feel anything. You could have a bad vaccum switch, a clogged tube, a leak at a T fitting, hole in a hose,  bad actuators, you just need to go through each component. There isn't much to it, so you should be able to have it figured out in short time.

A really quick way of testing the actuators is by swapping the two tubes coming from the firewall at the T fitting near the radiator. If the actuators are fine, the reverse polarity will close them when the headlights are on. If this works you can rule out the actuators and focus on the rest.

Which of the two hoses on the actuator is for the down movement; the one on top or the one on bottom?

[tan top]

I know this thread is old, but I'm having a similar problem; except, my headlight doors open when you turn the headlights on, but they don't open "fine"; they open very slowly. They do not close when you turn the headlights off.

Trace the vaccum lines. Start at the actuators and work your way to the switch. The first thing I would do is with the car running and lights off, unplug the hose at the actuator for the down movement and see if you feel any vaccum through the tube. If yes, then it is in the actuator, if no then you should move up to the T fitting, unplug that and see if you feel anything. You could have a bad vaccum switch, a clogged tube, a leak at a T fitting, hole in a hose,  bad actuators, you just need to go through each component. There isn't much to it, so you should be able to have it figured out in short time.

A really quick way of testing the actuators is by swapping the two tubes coming from the firewall at the T fitting near the radiator. If the actuators are fine, the reverse polarity will close them when the headlights are on. If this works you can rule out the actuators and focus on the rest.

Which of the two hoses on the actuator is for the down movement; the one on top or the one on bottom?

shut the head light door or  open it ??

to open headlight door , the actuator rod moves down
to close the head light door the actuator rod goes up

hazarding a guess !! the bottom plain black one   , to shut the headlight door !
they are color coded one with a amber/yellow sripe goes to the top connection on the actuator , plain black , goes to the bottom & one with a green stripe  goes to the vacume canister

you could test the actuators simpley  hooking up the vacume  lines one at a time  line to a hand opperated vacume pump( or suck , make sure there is no debris in vacume line first) to see what one  makes it go up or down !  ,