Aiming Headlamps

[02fanatic]

Does anyone have a method to align headlamps? I noticed in the Owner's manual a precise method for both high beams and low beams, but you need to have the car 25' & 16' away from the wall (my garage door) respectively. How important is that distance? I was trying to aim Hugo's Hella H4's over the weekend but the front of the car is only about 10 ft off my backdrop in the garage. Seems that the spread would be much tighter at a closer distance, but the height and alignment should be close to the specs in the manual upon adjustment. And these are H4'sanyway, not std sealed beams, so the cutoff will be tighter with less spread anyway...I was just going to measure headlamp height on the car and measure the same on the wall, etc. What have others done?

Thanks,

John

[MBH297]

Could you not just park one of your other '02s (one who's lights you know are set right!) in front of your garage, mark the reflections on the door and front tyre distances, swop the cars over and adjust the mis-aligned beams to suit. If the cars sit at different heights you will have to find your old calculator and practice some trig!!

[ingraham]

You really do need to be 25 feet away from the wall in order to get a reasonably precise measurement of the correct beam slope. Stern's article is very thorough. One detail I would add is that without a special level or surveying instrument it is very difficult to know if a surface is flat. Most outdoor paved surfaces that large are sloped to allow runoff. One way to overcome this is to place a yard stick vertically at the front and rear wheel (when the car is 25 ft back from the wall) and sight along the top of the two; mark that level on the wall. Repeat for the other side of the car, and draw a horizontal line between those marks. That line is 36 inches above the plane the tires are sitting on. Measure down from that to locate the headlight centers.

(Since John is a civil engineer, he probably has a transit and knows how to use it.)

[c.d.iesel]

......atleast 16.5 feet from the wall -

yes it does matter abit

[02fanatic]

(nt)

[Inka02]

This is WHY I am a slave to this sight. Lots of the same-o-same-o (shud i install a crane or pertonix) (what is a tii snorkle?) plus a few "fun" posters (dutch?)

And THEN a question gets answered that I had been meaning to ask(search) but was too lazy. Plus it gives me more reason to tackle this "project" next nice weekend.

EXCELLENT!

Now I can go and aim my lights so I don't blind the dude in the left lane!