Hey guys.. I need some help... my low beam lights wont work. i have a 2000 z24 cavalier and when the low beams are on they don't work. only the daytime running lights and the driving lights come on. The highbeams work perfect and the day time running lights work when the headlights are off and when they are in the park light position? any suggestions what my problem could be??

Also my drivers power window motor is very weak. it only works half the time.. its like it overheats.. then i let it cool down a bit.. it will put the window up another 2" and then it like overheats or something.. do i need to get a new one or is there something that can be done to solve this problem.. that is all....

thanks for anyones help..

The window sounds like a typical dying power window motor. Check the track and ensure there's nothing making it difficult for the window to slide.

That's the classic symptom of a dead motor though.

No idea about the headlights.

thanks ww.. i just did a search on the headlights.. most ppl have had it go alot.. seems like a common prob.. hopefully i can take it to a dealer and see what they can do.. i just don't want to get raped with with bill..

do you know what a new motor will run me?

If you were in Toronto it would cost you about $100 for the motor and a couple cases of Keith's for the installation.

Since you're out East though... I have no idea. How handy are you with stuff? If you've got a dremel with a grinding wheel and a lot of patience, you can do it yourself.

ohh i'm pretty handy.. lol...

is it just a bad wire in the motor or something.. maybe i can talk to double z or raven and they can help me out.. they seem to be the j-body guys out east.. :p maybe they can give me a few pointers... u don't have this fix on ur site do ya WW??

No, I don't. And if I took pictures as I did it and people saw the carnage I went through, they'd run to the hills screaming.

If ever I do another one though, I'll post up instructions. There's only one, maybe two difficult parts to the job. The rest is gravy.

If you've never taken out rivets before, that can be tricky. Everyone says you drill out a rivet. It's WAY easier to grind the head off with a dremel and then just push out the rest. That's probably the key to the whole job.

Then there's the maybe part. On some of the older cars, there's a clock spring on the regulator. If you remove the motor from the regulator, the regulator will swing around like giant scissors and you could easily lose a finger or two.

You can find instructions that tell you to drill through it and put a bolt to hold the regulator in place while you change the motor. If you actually wanted to keep the deadly little bastard then that would be a good idea. I found though, that the newer cars don't have them at all and my window works better without it than it ever did with it. So my advice is to be very careful when removing the motor and then to just discard the clock spring.

From there, use some half-inch bolts (I can't remember the diameter) and nuts in place of the rivets to put it back on. I think I used lock nuts but I can't remember. You need the half-inch bolts because if you use longer ones, they'll end up interfering with the regulator.

Lube up the regulator and all the tracks with some silicon lube and put some white grease on the sliders. Don't put grease anywhere else.

Then you're done.

I'll trust anyone attempting this already knows how to remove the window trim and stuff. My advice is to remove ALL of it before taking off the window. If you try to save time by not removing the mirror or the back trim or anything, you'll probably take longer in the end and may end up breaking something.

If the window is held in by strange bending rivets, you can unbend them to remove it and reuse them when putting it back in if you don't break them. Otherwise you'll need to find new ones or use little bolts or something.

so is it just some wires that get bad? or whats the part that needs to be replaced once you get the motor apart?

No, the motor itself goes bad and needs to be replaced. I bought a reconditioned one from Part Source and it's worked great.

You can get it for under $100.

i had the same trouble with my window. kept dying half way and such. the motors in my 02 are horrible. the driver's side has been replaced twice and the passenger side once. luckily that was all under warranty. warranty is up so i'm just waiting to see how long before the passenger side dies again. starting to show signs again.

This was prob one of the more difficult task i had to do by myself.. but after doin it.. turned out easier than i thought.. just use a dremel as ww said.. cut them off.. take the window out.. take the sliders out.. remount the new motor, then put it all back.. id say about an hour and a half tops.. and it works great.. thanks for the help ww..

i just paid out the a$$ for the dealer to fix my rear window motor
i guess i should have searched before hand
although i don't have much time to even work on my car

Usually not the actual motor but the regulator grand prixs have this problem alot regulator is cheaper then a motor, regulators are about 30 bucks on ebay.


Burn some dust-Eat my rubber!!!!

I did my driver side last year now i noticed today my passanger is going out on me. So im gonna be buying a new motor and regulator and replace the whole thing. Last time i didnt have small enough bolts and screws so i went to the dealer and got the rivets and then picked up a pnuematic rivet gun. I will try to do a write up if i get time to do it.