the lights on my 75 won`t retract, new lines, we did find a electral fitting that is broke,, the fitting on the passenger side is attached, to the lights,pas side goes down not drivers ,, i can`t find that fitting in the book, can anyone help? i just got her home and still learning whats what..

 

Hi cortlandfirefighter, the headlights go up and down on vacuum, at the front of your car there two "Head light actulator cannisters" one or both may leak, you can buy a rebuild kit or get the whole unit. This the first place to look.
The vacuum on the car starts at the intake manifold goes thru a filter then a check valve then to the vacuum reservoir, with a side line for the electric head lamp switch, and another side line for the up lock. Try to follow the vacuum line end to end to check for leaks. Hope this helps, PG.

 

The easiest way to check the actuators is to hook the vacuum line from the headlights to another vehicles vacuum source. Hook the line on the rear of each actuator with the light in the down position. Apply vacuum. They should raise and lock. If they do, put the line on the front of the actuators and apply vacuum again. They should lower. If the actuators are good, then it is time to check the relays, vacuum reserve canister, check valve, vacuum solenoid (on the back of the tach), vacuum override switches and the lines. There are many places that could interfere with the correct function. Good Luck.

 

Just one more thing, tell me about your Vette. Do you think that you would like to have your car judged at NCRS or Bloomington, is it that nice because if it is you must have the headlight actuators re-built to keep numbers matching. Same goes for anything else you replace.
But if your like most of us and want to drive our Vettes for fun buy whatever you need at the best value.PG.

 

Not sure if you are aware of it or not, but there is a small 3/16" dia stem beneath the steering column that is a manual override valve to hold the headlights up. Pull it down and the headlight covers stay up, push in or up the covers raise and retract with the heaadlight switch. Might be a good place to start, lots of folks are unaware of it's purpose.

Dave

 

first thing id get is the assembly manual. the manual wont show you how to fix it but it wil give you diagrams on how everthing is suppose to be laid out. you can buy them for your model year and there pretty cheap. i bought mine at ecklers.com

 

we did find a broken headlamp door open warn switch, the pas side does go down so i figure that the reason,thanks for the help..is their an easy way to get the threded plastic part that is left in out?

 

Hi Cortlandfirefighter, How it going with the headlights? I'm not sure what plastic part your talking about, tell me what catalog has a picture of it and we'll try to figure it out.
Also if you switch the front vacuum line on the canister to the rear of the canister does the headlight go down then? If yes than the canister is good. If not, and you have vacuum, then the canister is bad.PG

 

the catalog is corvette world,,,,,pg180,bottom of page #1945door open warn sw ,,that is whats broken, at the treads just hangs their,,ordered new one waiting for it to get here,ALL the vacum lines are new the lights worked till the thing got broken,,so i hope thats the problem,

 

well i finally got under and replaced the switch,,when i got looking (better)i found the boot all torn up on the actuators, i assume that the seal is gone also in the part box that came with the car was a new set...duh, i guess they forgot to tell me some things about her,,, so do i need to remove the complete tank or just slide the old ones off the rod and slide the new ones on,,,,,,nah couldn`t be that easy could it,,, i need a lift,,,,found a great web cite ZIP corvettes,,the tech part has inst and photos of the fix,, answred my question,,,thanks all for the help..