During the recent Clarence rebuild I took the headlight buckets out; totally disassembled them; sand blasted them; painted them; reassembled them; and reinstalled them. When I say disassembled them I mean ALL the way. Took the screws and springs out and refurbished everything before putting them back together. Now even on bright the lights shine at the road just a few feet in front of the panel truck. I drive with them on bright all the time and no one ever flashes their brights at me. I have a friend that has one of those headlight aiming devices from the dark ages, but I won't be seeing him for another month. If I can't aim them before then I'll ask him to bring it to our monthly luncheon. But before then can I park on the level shop floor facing the garage door and turn the lights on. Measure floor to center of lights, and aim them to some certain corresponding height on the door? Taking into account the distance from the door. What about side to side? The last time I aimed them I drove out on a low traffic blacktop road on a VERY foggy night and just fooled with them 'til I thought they were about right. The fog told me where they were aimed. That was over 25 years ago.
You can get them closer that way. You want the center of the beam to hit just to the right and just below level, the high’s should bring the beam up closer to level and center of the beam. I’ve adjusted many a headlight on a foggy night. Works great.
Take you daily driver and make a spot on the door of what you feel is where the center of the lights are hitting. Now measure the height difference between the daily’s headlights and Clarence. Elevate your “spot” and start there. I recall the old headlight adjuster machines. Last time I saw one was in Utah when my dad had his adjusted when I was 10/11 years old-50 years back.
Google Marchal headlamps. There used to be a technique listed. I recall you needed level ground and about twenty five feet from a wall. Measure up to the center of the headlamp and mark this on the wall. Low beam cutoff should be just below the mark and high beam right on or just over the mark on the wall, Left and right are your preference.
Another method is to pull the vehicle within 5 feet of the wall and then use masking tape to mark the vertical and horizontal centers of the light beams on the wall. Move the vehicle back 25 feet. With the aid of the tape line, the light beams should be roughly the same height vertically and horizontally. From Google and the same method I have always used with one exception. At 25 feet away I aim the beam one foot to the right, so as to not blind oncoming traffic. Edit: Looks like I just echoed what lowrd just said. Regardless, it works for me.
We always set the car on level ground and aimed them knee high at 25 feet, on low beam. High beam will take care of itself. Used to get 0.4 book time to aim lamps. Easy $$.
25 feet is a problem. At most I can get the back doors of Clarence about 30 feet from the door. That will get the headlights about 10 feet from the door. Unfortunately outside isn't level. I could take it to a friend's garage which is a 4 car building; 2 wide and 2 deep. I'm sure I could get him to move two cars out for a half hour or so.
Drive to a dark parking lot. Turn the lights on. Adjust one at a time by covering one and adjusting the other. Set the left one to focus on the ground about 40 feet straight ahead. 40 feet or whatever looks right. Cover the left one and adjust the right one to focus about 10 feet less and a bit to the right to illuminate the side line of the road. I'm guessing on the dimensions but you get the drift.
After paint on an OT sports car, I reinstalled the headlight buckets and it looked like the lights were adjusted way too high. Quickly figured out they could be installed either way and I had installed them upside down. Probably not the case here but thought I would share in the event your problem is similar.
The manual headlight adjusters will get you close, but they don't take into account the driver or seat height. You'll always need to adjust them for your taste. 25 feet out and almost touching is the rule, but get it close, take it out on the road at night and keep massing with it. Are they sealed beams or housings with bulbs?.
I always use a spirit level to get the headlight mount face vertical (headlight lenses removed) and a straight edge to get them square to the car. If you can get a straight edge to go accross both lights even better so they are parallel. After that there is minimal adjustment needed.
Hello, I was drawing another surf vehicle, a 1946 Ford Sedan Delivery out of a 46 woody I drew earlier. Removing the wood and making a solid panel was not that hard. This one has a chopped top, similar to your delivery. it is interesting that the concern for a legal headlight angle was brought up. The CHP in So Cal seemed to be more interested in headlight height of the raised trucks and were pulling over plenty of them to give them a fix-it ticket. We all have been blasted in the rear view mirrors at night when stopped for a red light and the glare (of the raised truck/van headlights) is evident. The adjusting process is relatively simple and as a teenager, I did this several times in the two car garage against a white poster board taped to a closet door. We did this same test with the 1951 Oldsmobile two door sedan. When we dropped it 1 inch in front. The angle of the headlight was not right. Being stock in the rear made the headlight lower than normal. But, we did not adjust the beam just yet. We got the rear lowered to where it was in the final drop. Now, the angle was going to be the right level aim. So, we set up the garage and used our dad’s Buick sedan as a test mule for the stock headlight angle. After we moved the Buick into place, the headlight made a mark on the white poster board. Then with it marked, the height was stock. Now, the Oldsmobile sedan was moved in place and the headlight beam was quite lower than the mark for the stock. The fender and wheel well openings were measured and they were almost similar, the Oldsmobile being slightly lower. So, adjusting the beam angle, we raised the beam on the Oldsmobile to be in a level angle with the headlight and body. Jnaki For the next year and a half, my brother never got stopped for illegal angle of the headlights. After selling the Oldsmobile sedan to my brother’s friend, he never had a problem with the CHP or local police to say the headlight was not legal. YRMV
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