Headlight Motor

I was pulling a stripped gear out of my motor ('86 GT), to drop in the R.D. gear, and I noticed some time since I'd last used the motor (have had it locked upright for over a month since the gear stripped out) I lost a brush on the, uhh, part with the carbon brushes on it in the motor.

Is there any reason I shouldn't just solder a new brush on, and if that is kosher, is there any particular way I should go about doing that?

Blair wrote: Is there any reason I shouldn't just solder a new brush on, and if that is kosher, is there any particular way I should go about doing that?

I just did that to mine. It works well. Clean it , solder it , reinstall it.

[/QUOTE]

I tried soldering new brushes on and couldn't get the solder to stick to the metal tabs that press the brushes againts the motor armature.  Must be the type of metal they use or the type of solder I was using.  I used aluminized glue and it worked pretty well but the brushes were not straight and would rub the motor armature at an angle.  So I bought new brush assemblies from Rodney Dickmans.    I just checked and unfortunately, the motor brush assemblies are no longer there.  Maybe somebody else has the brush assemblies now.

 

 

The brushes are soldered when new but time makes it week and fall of, in this case in my hand. I cleaned both parts to base material, tinned the arm ,and then reattached the old brush. I've also used brushes from scrap motors to repair good ones. The brush works best when installed straight.

If you find something that's close, but say the profile is wrong (where the curved part mates to the armature) - wrap some fine sand paper around the armature, grit side out.

Let the brush rest against the paper, then pull the strip of paper back and forth to shape the brush.