Headlamp alignment?

[deebledave]

Is anybody able to suggest a simple method of measuring headlamp alignment for a 7 ?

TIA

[abbot]

There is an old thread on this subject

Head Light Adjustment

At my last Control Technique (MOT) the lights were slightly out until the tester gently adjusted them with a nudge

[Jonathan Kay]

From the Assembly Guide:

Jonathan

[Bricol]

 . .. or just copping hold and twisting as appropriate . . . ;)

Worked for mine for the last 18 yrs.

[bjw]

One way of doing it properly:-

1. On a flat surface, park a few metres away from, and  facing square on,  a plain light coloured wall or garage door etc.
2. Mark a line horizontally on the wall at the same height as the centres of the headlamps. (Or use a piece of string and blu-tac.)
3. Take a length of string and tie it to the exact middle of the top of the rollbar. Pull it taught forward just above the middle fastener on the windscreen and mark where it meets the wall. Drop a vertical to the horizontal line and mark there. This is then  on the centreline of the car, midway betweeen the headllamps.
4. Measure the distance between centres of the headlamps and transfer the measurement to the wall, with marks equally spaced each side of the centre previously marked. Mark vertical lines through those points. You now have a cross on the wall directly in front of each headlamp.
5. Measure the distance from the headlamps to the wall and divide by 100. This gives the distance for a 1% drop at the wall, which is comfortably clear of the minimum of 0.5% to be safe for an MoT, but still gives good range. (The maximum is a rather extreme 2.75%, relaxed from 2.0% in 2016 because testers were apparently making too many mistakes...)

Assuming the lamps are right hand drive, Euro type with a horizontal cutoff and left hand upward kink:-

        6. Adjust dipped headlamps vertically so that the horizontal cutoff is at the calculated distance below the horizontal mark, and horizontally so that the corner of the kink is a similar distance to the left of the mark. (Again comfortably clear of the '0%' MoT limit, and well within the frankly bizarre maximum of 'anywhere on the left of the screen'!)

Maybe not very simple but really not too hard and guaranteed to give a result as good as, or better than, a typical garage will achieve.

Cheers

[bjw]

Also, I would suggest that if a headlamp can be moved by hand then it's a sign it's not tightened properly and will soon go out of alignment again.

Two factors work against effective tightening - difficulty of access and dry/dirty threads.  It's hard to find a spanner to suit - any typical open ended spanner fouls the indicator housing at some point and/or the other end hits some other part of the car. Even when it feels as though you've tightened as much as you dare, dry threads can severely limit the amount of clamping force.

A ring spanner clears the housing nicely but obviously requires a gap to get around the wiring. I tried cutting one down to suit, but it was still very awkward to use even after I shortened it to a barely useable length.

In the end I welded the end of an offset ring spanner to an old 3/8" socket:-

 

I wouldn't be at all surprised if something similar were commercially available, but I've not found it.

That completely solved the access problem, but the ease of tightening just made it very obvious that the threads were the main factor. A bit of cleaning and lubrication made an enormous difference.

If you can move the headlamp without bending something, it's not tight enough!

Cheers

[7 wonders of the world]

Worth noting that many LED headlight do not have the 'kick' either as they run 'flat dip' making them suitable for UK or Continental use.

[deebledave]

Thanks for the replies!

[Bricol]

If you do it so tight it wont move - you've crushed the indicator mount :)

Just tight enough - doable with an open ended spanner at an angle so it doesn't move much in use, but able to be tweaked with relative ease if MOT requests it.  Which in my case is twice in 18 yrs.

Just be glad they aren't as bad as Lancia integrale evo lights - to access the adjusting screws, its easier one side if you take the air filter housing out . . . and next to impossible if you don't take the battery out on the other . . . which makes seeing where they point a little less easy  :)

[anthonym]

Great thread,

I am using LHD lenese because we drive on the right, do we know the Euro version of this bit?

6. Adjust dipped headlamps vertically so that the horizontal cutoff is at the calculated distance below the horizontal mark, and horizontally so that the corner of the kink is a similar distance to the left of the mark. (Again comfortably clear of the '0%' MoT limit, and well within the frankly bizarre maximum of 'anywhere on the left of the screen'!)

No kink in my BDR's Cibie lenses which I presume means they are "flat dip".

Anthony