CANIBUILD4U
Member
I recently bought a set of hide away head light grill for a 72 to put on my 74 Charger . I had several problems and the bigest was the motor was froze up and no one seemed to know anything about them and no one wanted to open it up and work on it so I had to tear into it my self . Will 72 hide aways fit in a 74 grill? Yes they will but with some problems . First of all dont attempt to install these with the bumper on the car . You have to do away with the bumper guards , also there is a heavy metal support running from left to right of the bottom of your bumper that must have been a crash protection up-grade from the earlier models that has to be discarded because the head light motor bracket wont fit with it in place . Now the problem that this causes is that behind your bumper guards if you do away with them is a round hole not a square hole which means a regular bumper bolt wont have anything to catch on to tighten it . Also on a 74 bumper on the top mounting brace has a ear bent up with a mounting hole for your hide away bezel and needs but dont have one on the other end . I just bought some 1" strap metal at Lowes and made a L bracket and I was missing some of the factory L brackets that mounts the bezel to the bumper I made them too . Now the fun part . When I got my motor it was completely froze stuck . I put a pair of pliers on the thumb wheel on the motor shaft and it broke free but turned really hard . I was afraid to open the motor up so for a couple weeks I tryed soaking it with WD40 etc. it got better . It got free enough to at least run but not very well . I finally decided to break it down . First of all let me give you some advice . On what I call the gear box on the top of the motor , notic there is a raised mark above the square bushing hole that your drive rod runs through, and also a mark that appears to be a crack in you bush with the square hole . These have a purpose I learned the hard way . You need to line the two up before you split the gear box case because this is center of the travel of a large plastic cam and if you dont line this up when you split the case the cam will hang up on the copper contacts and can bend them . If you do it isnt a big deal to bend them back . When you open this up you will find a worm gear on the end of your motor shaft that runs a plastic half gear like a pendulum in a clock left to right depending on which direction the motor is running . On this half gear there is a red plastic cam ( which will only fit on the gear one way ) this cam when it turns all the way to the left or right will run against a smaller cam which is under copper contacts on both sides of the gear box cap and it shoves the contacts apart to stop the motor from going any farther in that direction whether it is the closing or opening direction . Then when the relay from your switch runs your motor the other direction it closes the same set of contacts as it passes it going to the opposite contacts in the other direction so it is ready when your relay sends electric for the motor to return in the same direction again . Now if you will remove the screw from the opposite end of the motor where your thumb knob is and pull the motor apart about a 1 1/2 inch being careful not to damage the brush wire you can take a meter and check continuity from you copper contacts to your brushes which will tell you if you windings is ok . Take note when you pull the motor apart on the other end of your motor in your gear box there is a small round flat metal wear plate that the end of your worm gear on your shaft runs against and could fall out un-noticed . Now what I did next to get to get the armiture clear out of the motor case was this , I was careful but continued to pull the shaft out the bottom end of the motor case until it came out of the upper bearing then I pulled the gear box case off the motor case and just let it kinda lay to the side being careful with the wiring . Next I took a small flat screw driver and bent the back of the brush holder open to the brush that was attached to the motor windings so I could remove the spring and the brush . Now I could pull the whole shaft out of the case with the bottom cap and brush holder still in tack . Now this is where I made my biggest mistake . My whole problem was that the bearing on the bottom motor cap was what was rusted and froze up and this bearing is under the brushes which is mounted on a flat plastic mounting plate which is riveted to the end cap . I was afraid of drilling out the rivets and removing it . Dont be because I broke mine in 3 pcs trying to fix the bearing . You have to get this out of the way to work on the bearing .
Behind this plastic plate is a small set of ball bearings on a ring to make the shaft turn real free which is sandwiched between the armiture and the bearing . The bearing is rounded on the outside and mounted with a fingered clip that allows the bearing to swivel to prevent wear . My bearing on this end was froze with rust to the shaft and when I had broke it free earlier the whole bearing was turning inside the fingered clip instead of the shaft in the bearing which made it turn real hard . Note I also thought the thumb knob was threaded on and its not its pressed on over slines on the shaft . You need a small gear puller to remove it I put a small pipe wrench on mine and stripped it . Oh and the plastic plate I broke , being a contractor lol , I used the side of a plastic outlet box to make a new one and cut strips of metal off a joist hanger to rivet it to the metal to re-inforce the plastic . Hey it worked!
Behind this plastic plate is a small set of ball bearings on a ring to make the shaft turn real free which is sandwiched between the armiture and the bearing . The bearing is rounded on the outside and mounted with a fingered clip that allows the bearing to swivel to prevent wear . My bearing on this end was froze with rust to the shaft and when I had broke it free earlier the whole bearing was turning inside the fingered clip instead of the shaft in the bearing which made it turn real hard . Note I also thought the thumb knob was threaded on and its not its pressed on over slines on the shaft . You need a small gear puller to remove it I put a small pipe wrench on mine and stripped it . Oh and the plastic plate I broke , being a contractor lol , I used the side of a plastic outlet box to make a new one and cut strips of metal off a joist hanger to rivet it to the metal to re-inforce the plastic . Hey it worked!
