Headlight Beam Setting

I seem to remember there was something in the Tech manual about headlight aiming.

Did a Google search and found several DIY pages. Looked under headlight adjustment.

Hi Julian,

Park the car in front of a wall. Switch on high and low beams, then disconnect the power to the headlight lifting motor. Now you can adjust the entire pods down until the beam is affected by the front fender. This way you will find out how low you can go. Then adjust the limit switch. The high beams generally point straight forward. The 90mm Hella high beam lights that you have are flood beam not pencil beam, so straight forward works well.

Not sure about the US spec low beams. As you know here in the land of the black sun they have a kick-up on the left to light up hedge and sign posts. Also the lamp is pointed to the hedge to prevent dazzling the on coming drivers. However, in the US they just put out a flat beam. I suppose you just angle it down, but not sure if you are supposed to aim it to the right?

If you have not already done it, you really should consider converting to HID. You don't have to change the lamp, only the bulb, and of coarse you have to add a ballast box for each lamp. That will increase the light output by about 3 times. The kits are getting much cheaper now, aprox $170 to convert 2 lamps.

Cheers, Johnny

Julian,
Did you hook up both the low beam and high beam so that come on together? How did that work out?

There is an offical guideline for adjusting, but I perfer to set to my liking. Shoot the beams at a wall and adjust as necessary. Lows should be low and the driver side beam slightly to the right (avoids blinding oncoming cars). Highs further ahead and more or less centered straight ahead. Like i said, set to what you are most comfortable with. Cops seldom ticket people for miss-adjusted lamps.

Julian,

i have the Vaders, which are great. With the instructions is a very good section on aiming -which I am enclosing.

Here is the text:

Here are the diagrams.

Thanks to all for the responses, especially Johnny & Deeb for great instructions.

I do intend to convert to HID at the first opportunity.

Steve (RoverLTD): I haven't installed the relay yet, I concentrated on the physical stuff first. Soon time for it to go away for winter and I have a long list of 'to do's'. To get all the time I need in the garage on the Pantera I gonna have to first put in some time on the MGB I got the wife!

Julian