Ferrari 355 Spider The left hand headlight motor will not raise when the lights are turned on at the stalk controls by the steering wheel. The right hand headlight is operating correctly. Action taken Cleaned all the terminal connections. Checked that the motor on the left hand headlight is working correctly and rotated it through multiple cycles when off the car. Swopped related fuses and control modules with no effect on the problem. Any ideas on how to resolve this problem. I was wondering whether the stalk control on the steering wheel could be causing this problem?
The stalk switch is fine. There is only one wire between the switch and the relay for controlling both headlamp pod motors. A single black/green wire comes out of the relay panel and the wire splits into two (green/black) wires at a spice. I would: 1) check the continuity of the wire from relay "D" (pin 87, I believe) to the green/black wire on the white plug at the left headlamp pod. 2) check the continuity of the brown/black wire on the black (darker) plug of the left headlamp pod to the solenoid of relay "B" (pin 85, I believe) 3) check the continuity of the red/black wire on the white plug of the left headlamp pod to relay "B" (pin 87, I believe). 4) check you have a good earth on the black wire of the motor plug. Ferrari don't tell you what the relay socket numbers are, so you may have to do further tests. Don't assume you've found the problem if you have no continuity. Also make sure that the pins on the motor plugs (car side) are spotlessly clean. Pod problems have been caused by improper adjustments of the gearbox/pod linkages. You may also have a diode problem on the motor (probable). I assume you only tested the motor wires on the bench. 2.7 or 5.2? UK car or US?
Did you try and turn the headlight motor knob? Try turning it and see if the motors cycles after a couple of turns. *Be careful as it may takeoff on it's own once you start to turn it.
Here's a graphic of the headlight pod electrics: Image Unavailable, Please Login If you can't see the colours on the wires, use the "steps" in the plugs as a guide. With the headlight pod down, you should be able to check the diode between the VN (green/black) wire on the white plug and N (black wire) on the darker (2 pin) plug. The other diode, I believe, can be tested with the headlight fully up (when the internal contacts switch to contact B)
That is a good way to test/diagnose the problem. I would suggest to disconnect the battery, turn the motor knob until the light is about 30% or so up, reconnect the battery, switch the light on and off and see what happens.
A further piece of input, if I rotate the manual height adjustment on the left hand headlight, once the headlight is around 25 mm up, it automatically raises and closes itself. If I have the left hand headlight in the upright position via manual adjustment, when I turn the power on at the lights at the stalk both headlight stay up. When I switch them off stalk both headlights go down as you would expect. After this cycle the left hand headlight will no longer raise when the lights are turned on.
Search my post in the DIY section. It describes how I resolved this same issue in my car. Corrosion in the contact assembly.
You probably have a blown diode, as Ian also suggested earlier. You should be able to access and test the diodes if you fold back the protective rubber cover: Image Unavailable, Please Login The diodes used here are very common and easy to get in any radio shack. I believe they are 1N4004, 5 or 6 (the last digit). The function of the two diodes is to re-start the motor after it has automatically stopped, either at closed or at upright position, when the position of the light switch is changed (off-to-on or on-to-off); one diodes enables re-start from closed and the other from upright.
Thanks al for the quick responses and input. Problem resolved cleaned lift motor grease and cleaned all contacts and found an earth fault on the earth wire to the motor, fixed this and all is working as it should..
