Lining up headlights - Driving me crazy!

s2k_adz

Club Member
Hey all,

Ive just spent the last three hours arsing around trying to get my headlights to sit central in the holes. Its driving me mental.
No matter what I do with loosening the wings, buckets, splitter, they just don't seem to sit nice at all. Ive used the two adjustment screws but they don't seem to do a huge amount bar pivoting the lights around a single axis.

Im starting to debate grinding bits off the inside of the one wing and maybe drilling out the mounting holes where the buckets join the wing. Is this normal to have to arse about like this?

I guess I did pick buckets from a non rusty car etc so the wings and buckets weren't originally from the same car.

I also just want to check the brackets the lights sit in, they aren't sided are they?
 

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jonbills

Membership Secretary
Site Administrator
They look OK to me. maybe just live with them a while before deciding to cut anything?
 

s2k_adz

Club Member
They look OK to me. maybe just live with them a while before deciding to cut anything?
The photo doesn't show the skew whiftness as much as they are Jon. The driver's one in particular is quite out and is actually almost behind the bucket on the outer edge.

Its so frustrating there's no adjustment sideways. I think the whole front end just needs lining up properly since it's had the respray, although panel gaps are good, it's just the buckets to lights which are off
 

jonbills

Membership Secretary
Site Administrator
I've never had the buckets off the wings on my car, so no idea what adjustments might be possible. doesn't the headlight mounting in the wing have some capacity for slotting holes or remaking with an offset?
 
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Albrecht

Well-Known Forum User
Yes, the headlamp bowls are handed left and right. Usually they were marked with an LH or RH stamping, but replacements might have been marked with a no-longer-visible ink stamp.

Easiest way to sort this is to simply drill the 4 holes in the bowls bigger and use wider washers behind the mounting screws to compensate. That will easily allow you enough wiggle room to centre the headlamp units in the openings.
 

s2k_adz

Club Member
Took all the front end off and the wings. Shaved some off one wing and packed one out and it's much better!
 

s2k_adz

Club Member
Yes, the headlamp bowls are handed left and right. Usually they were marked with an LH or RH stamping, but replacements might have been marked with a no-longer-visible ink stamp.

Easiest way to sort this is to simply drill the 4 holes in the bowls bigger and use wider washers behind the mounting screws to compensate. That will easily allow you enough wiggle room to centre the headlamp units in the openings.

I tried seeing stamps on mine. Both seem to have R on but they both fit pretty well. I've got some spares here but they also all say R so maybe that isnt in relation to the left or right side.

I might drill a couple of the bowl holes slightly bigger on one side just to get the final adjustments! There's still not much in and out with them though as the bracket touches the inner wing.
 

Albrecht

Well-Known Forum User
I tried seeing stamps on mine. Both seem to have R on but they both fit pretty well. I've got some spares here but they also all say R so maybe that isnt in relation to the left or right side.

The main difference is in the fitment of the nylon captives which are used to adjust the beam direction. The captives were factory-fitted and hard to replace. The 'clocking' of the captives is mirror-imaged LH to RH, matching up with the adjustment slots in the headlamp housings/'sugar scoops'.

There are repro captives on the market but - in my experience at least - they don't fit very well and are not quite the same as the originals. The originals were probably installed in the bowl pressings using some sort of heat process.
 

Farmer42

Club Member
Adz. There are small notches on the light unit that sit in slots in the headlight bowl with the chrome outer ring holding it all in place. I found that if you don't get these sat right it can throw the whole thing out of kilter.
 
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