Headlight adjustment - low beam

[Zeke]

In all cars I've owned in the past, the owner's manual had detailed diagrams and instructions for correctly setting the headlamp adjustment. Nothing in the BA manual.

Can anyone help with a copy of the correct procedure and correct settings, esp vertical headlamp aim of low beam.

[dingah2]

Open bonnet and locate rear of headlamp units. YOU will eventually see two knurled knobs about 10" apart laterally. THe higher one of the two adjusts up and down and experimentation will show which way and how much. Remeber how much you adjust each side so that you can return to where you started. An unscrewing motion raises the entire unit's aiming point, try no more than one complete turn at a time.

Ideally you need pitch black area with the car facing the side of a large wall about 20 metres away in order to readily see the results of your endeavours.

Hope that helps.

DIngah

[Zeke]

Thanks for that, Dingah.

But what I really wanted to know is how to set them up optimally with regard to aim. Eg, "the cut-off point at the centre of each beam on the wall should be 51cm from the ground with the car 3 metres from the wall" or similar. Otherwise it's just a rough attempt to get the beams approximately horizontal and I'm sure it's meant to be done more precisely than that.

[Turbo6man]

Zeke> I usually aim my low beams a little lower than recommended as I often have weight in the back of my cars. This is what I do - drive up to a brick wall on level ground and take note of the position of the 'v' formed by the low beams. I drive slowly backwards (straight of course) and note whether either of the beams moves left or right of the original position. I adjust the horizontal if necessary to ensure the beams are both straight ahead. Then I do the vertical in much the same way, and the measure I usually adopt is to back up about 10 metres and at that distance I adjust the horizontal cut-off to be about 100mm lower than the original point (close up to the wall). So about two courses of bricks. This is why a brick wall is handy as you have reference lines to work from. Hope this helps.

PS On the road a good test is to take note of the cut-off of your lights against the guide posts on the right hand side of the road. If your lights are getting up above half-way up the posts then you are causing dazzle to oncoming drivers. If they are hitting the reflectors on the top of the post you will be blinding oncoming drivers and they will be flashing you.

[harasn]

The correct way to align the headlights is as follows

On a level floor, measure from the centre of the headlight globe you are wanting to align, to the ground. Mark this point on a wall or board, that you can drive up to and then reverse back square to the board, to have the front of the car back 5 metres from the board. Now measure 50mm lower than the mark on the board and this is the point that you set the light beam to. just touching the mark with the top of the beam. This is what is meant to be done at the factory but I have yet to see one done right! You can repeat this for every light on the front of the car. I find that a garage roller door is a good reference cause you measure the points you need once and use the ribs of the door.

hope that helps

you can get a light aligner that will measure the light intensity that works very well to, but that costs money, the wall is cheaper!

[Zeke]

Thanks Turbo6man and Harasn

I guess what that all means is that the beam should drop 10mm per metre from the car - so both your methods give the same result - as would eg 75mm at 7.5 metres.

I'm going to get some Philips Visionplus globes tomorrow as they seem to be rated highly overseas and are likely to be considerably better than standard. Osram Silverstar are also very highly rated but I'm not sure if the locally available 50+'s are the same animal, so the Philips seem a safer bet. Everything I read convinced me there's no advantage going for "blue" globes unless you're getting genuine Xenon and that's not currently an option. I'll check the aim after fitting them. I'm only doing the H4's as my only problem is the low beam, which I reckon is

[dingah2]

Zeke:

I have the Phillips fitted to high beam as well - really worth the investment. SIlverstar were obtained through E-Bay and took less than a week to arrive - take a look there is a UK based dealer who is V efficient.

Dingah

[Zeke]

Hi Dingah

Do you have the Osram Silverstar or Philips Visionplus in the H4 (outer) hi/lo beam lights? I gather they're much of a muchness, but the Philips ones are available from the local Autobahn, so I probably won't chase the Osrams thru ebay.

Thanks for the info anyway.

Took a quick look tonight and I think I'll have to take out the battery and the airbox. I can't see how I can do the job without removing those bits. Might take a bit longer, but it'll probably be less traumatic. Working on a Falcon reminds me of when I used to try to get into Mrs z's good books (and other things) by fixing bits on her Cooper S. That was more than 30 years ago. You'd think car makers would have advanced in the mechanic-friendly stakes since then.

[dingah2]

Zeke - I do not have large hands (don't go there Scootre!) and now can remove them with air box and battery in place. If uncertain certainly the battery is an easy one to shift in and out (careful not to knock the boost control relay against the bulkhead like I did the first time and then end up with it transmitting a strange vibration right trough the car) but I have alsways managed with teh airbox in place but I remove the top of it. Just be patient and keep your fingers off the globes. Osrams are in the dip outers and Phillps in the high beam inners. I too doubt that there will be that great a difference in performance.

[Zeke]

Spent a fun hour or so tonight replacing the H4 globes with Philips Visionplus.

My congrats to Dingah2 for doing the same thing with the airbox and battery in place.....no way I could! And as soon as I disconnected the battery, I remembered I've got the dealer-fit alarm option. Scared the crap outa me! And how do you turn the bloody thing off? NFI. All alarms I've had in the past could be turned off with a key for service etc, but this thing has no key and is not accessible anyway. No instructions of any sort either. Not good enough Ford. My tip to anyone contemplating the optional alarm is to go aftermarket instead, By now the aftermarket fitters will be familiar with the BA, which wasn't the case when I bought mine.

Adjusted the headlights, but accidently adjusted the lateral aim of one of them by moving the wrong knob. moved it back to something that looks about right.

The globes are noticeably better, but the difference isn't what I would call outstanding. Still, any improvement is a bonus. I'm not going to rush into doing Mrs z's car. She's going to have to be very nice to be to get her new globes fitted. At least her car doesn't have a alarm!