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AaronM AaronM is offline
Ornery Bastard
 
Join Date: Sep 2001
Location: South Sound
Posts: 2,880
Quote:
Originally posted by Sabyre
I once had a earlier model Sunbird with flippy lights. More like flippy shields. It had a 2 motor setup. The gearing (dried up) and when you turned the headlights on or off they would produce a screeching sound that is comparable to a shreiking banshee conjured up in your worst of nightmares.

Applaude what Porsche has givin' you.

It can always be worse!
The gearing on Porsche's setup can dry up too. There's nothing magical to keep it from drying out.

My old Accord had a two motor setup for its retracting headlights and it worked flawlessly for 217,000 miles (I can't say for sure after that since I sold the car at 217,000 miles).

I really don't think that either system is better than the other, the 914, it must be remembered, is a very old car and given the 914's fairly notorious electrical system it's not surprising that it had problems with the headlights (mine hasn't, so far). Sure a one-motor system has the weight of the linkage, but it also lacks the weight of a second motor. The only drawback I see in the one motor system is a lack of redundancy. If one motor fails, then you have no headlights. In a two motor system, if one motor fails at least you still have one headlight. But the chances of a motor failure are so small that it really doesn't matter in practical application. Usually the failure is in a relay or the wiring which would disable a two-motor system as well as a one-motor system.

Aaron
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Old 12-18-2003, 09:31 AM
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