Odd failsafe headlight behavior

[steve lyle]

My headlights tend to stay down, even when vacuum is removed, until I hit a bump. At speed, it can take quite a jolt to get them go come up, as the drag tends to push them down. It's gotten to the point where, if I think I'm going to need the headlights, I'll raise them before a drive by manually pushing down on the rear edge of the pod before I get in the car, then pull the vacuum switch immediately after starting the engine.

Any idea why this is, and how I can fix it?

The good news is that this is the "last" functional issue I've got with the car (knock on wood). We just got back from a 600 mile drive, and besides this headlight issue, the only other nit was a vibration of the trim around the radio, since fixed with a bit of butyl rubber behind the trim.

[oldelanman]

The headlamp pods pivot on bolts in threaded bobbins in the body ... it sounds like the threads may be partially siezed.
You need to remove the headlamps from the pods to gain access to the pivot bolt heads then you can remove, clean the threads and grease them liberally before refitting. I would suggest removing/refitting one at a time then you won't lose the lateral adjustment of the pod in the body aperture.

If the pivots are moving freely then it may be the lifting spring on the vacuum actuator has become weak and needs replacing. The failsafe system uses a different spring from the non-failsafe system .. maybe the wrong spring has been fitted at some time?

[pharriso]

Steve, are you sure everything is assembled the right way?

I used to have similar issues, after looking on here I found mine was not & was binding where the spring attaches to the vacuum actuator. I re-assembled correctly, greased everything, added a captive nut & everything works reliably now.

Here are some pictures post-rebuild:

No idea why the pictures are suddenly upside-down!

[steve lyle]

Thanks, guys.

Must be a weak spring. The pivots are fine, at least they seem that way after the pods rotate maybe 20 degrees. It's that first 20 that's a problem. A weak spring is the likely culprit, since it looks like the assembly is correct.

I'll go searching for a replacement spring.

[billwill]

No idea why the pictures are suddenly upside-down!

It's the curse of modern technology , modern phone display coding detects when pictures are sideways or upside down and revise what you see... WITHOUT CHANGING THE ORIGINAL FILE.

So if the original file is wrong orientation when you upload it here, it displays the original orientation.

[Steve Brooks]

Hello, on my failsafe pod there are two springs ( which I believe is normal).One spring on a failsafe will not push the headlamps up on its own.Regards Steve

[oldelanman]

Hello, on my failsafe pod there are two springs ( which I believe is normal).One spring on a failsafe will not push the headlamps up on its own.Regards Steve

The OP has a Sprint and your car is a Plus 2... they appear to be different.

According to the Parts List the Plus 2 failsafe system uses two springs but the Sprint has only one. They both use the same vacuum actuator however and you can just about see the holes for the second spring in Phil's photo so you could easily add the second spring if you need to. There are four different springs listed (two LH and two RH) so I presume a stronger version was introduced with the failsafe system.

Elan Headlamp Vacuum System

Plus 2 Headlamp Vacuum System