Ok guys, I need help! My avatar car has the four light vertical headlight system, with regular light bulbs. It seems brighter on dim than bright! All four light on high beam, two on low beam. I get the headlight flash on dim! I think maybe I need to “ aim” my headlights as they look kinda odd! Does anyone have a trick method of aiming headlights? I have been messing with cars and trucks for way more years than I care to remember, but never “ aimed “ a set of headlights! Lol Any suggestions? Tia Bones
Maybe look for an old headlight aiming tool(s) on ebay? I think I have some of those somewhere. Mine were blue and attached to the bulb and had bubble levels on them. Seems like they had a string to go between them to aligb them side to side. I couldn't use them on my '40 Ford cuz they have no alignment nubs on the glass because the rims will hit them. Only way was align them, then pull the bulbs and take to glass shop to have the nubs ground off and polished, then reinstall. Or just take the car to a body shop and have them do it! Dave
I've seen tutorials where you park the car 20 or 25? feet from a wall or garage door. Horizontal line on wall, etc. Maybe this will help: https://rxmechanic.com/how-to-aim-headlights/ Or: https://haynes.com/en-us/tips-tutorials/how-adjust-your-headlight-aim-emergency
Come to think of it, it has been a long time since I had the '40 aimed! It's been about 22 years! Dave
Is there a chance the wiring is bass ackwards...mine was, mind you it was a two light system not 4...It was a Halogen conversion and the low and high wires were reversed...real dull on low bright on high...when I reversed them low was bright and high was brighter...was I happy about that...
^^^^ above & I also go out on a very desolate & Dark 2 lane road with Lines & adjust as needed Low & high , after each adjustment I stand in front of one side so I can see Direction of the beam on road , & use lines sorta like a site.
Back in my mechanic days, the old sealed beam headlight was set with the car on a level floor/ground, 10 feet away from a wall.. Measure the height from ground level, to center of the headlight, then mark this measurement on the wall directly in front of the light minus 2 inches, do the same with the other light. Then with lights set on high beam, this is where you set the beam, dip will drop the beam down and to the right (USA lights)..
I always just go to a flat, empty road at night and get out with my screwdriver. Then hop back in and see what I think.
I followed the headlight aiming directions in my Buick shop manual. It was basically the garage wall tape routine. Most shop manuals have a section on how to adjust the headlights in them.
Headlight aiming was a traditional scam for car inspections when I was younger. All that to pick up $3. My buddy's shop has the equipment and did mine on the eve of my close call with the heart attack in 2016.
I think you're like most people....there are only a few of us who seem to pay any attention to headlight aiming! I often use a wall to help me get the lights pointed the correct height, and side to side. They should point pretty much straight ahead when on high beam. Maybe down a couple inches, at 20 feet away. After doing this, I try them out on high and low beam, on a dark, straight road. If you've never adjusted them, then it's possible that the adjuster screws are rusty, perhaps the nuts are broken or will break when you try to adjust them, especially the ones that use plastic nuts. Have fun, it makes driving at night more pleasant when you can see where you're going.
I park a newer (never monkeyed with) car on my driveway roughly 15 feet or so away from the garage door and turn on its lights. I mark the garage door with painters tape (easily peeled off). I then park the car needing adjustment in the same spot and adjust lights to match. Works for me It has been brought to my attention that I failed to state the obvious ... this method works best if the "newer car" and the car needing adjustment have headlights that are roughly the same height. Your results will not be acceptable if you are attempting to adjust a '64 Corvette with flat front tires using the projected beams from '49 Dodge Power Wagon that has flat rear tires Again, I have had success using this system, your results may vary greatly.
wow....how can that possibly work? The height of the headlights on both cars has to be identical, and mostly they aren't.
I did not check that! That could be my problem! I just had a person verify that four were on on bright and two were on on dim! I will check that out myself , tonite! Thanks! Bones
Thanks a lot, guys! Some good advice here! Looks like I have some work ahead of me. I think , maybe I may add some high powered high beams to my car before trying to aim or fix what I have. At my age, I need all the light I can get at night! Bones
I just happen to have this: https://www.jalopyjournal.com/forum/threads/old-headlight-aiming-tool.1283279/
I go out on a flat gravel road and park. Then, time to get serious, set my beer down on the hood, take off my jacket and place it over one side light, then adjust the other side. Next, repeat on the other side being carful not to tip over the beer while moving the jacket. Been working good for decades.
Sounds to me like you're thinking backwards. Get what you have working right, you might find that you can see just fine. One OT car I had with sealed beams had very dim lights. I looked closely at the headlights, and discovered that the reflectors had lost most of their silvering. The glue holding the lenses to the reflectors had separated. The halogen bulbs were still working fine, but they weren't throwing out much light, because of the failed reflectors. The guy had added some wonky snow plow lights to be able to drive, but of course he had to turn them off in town.
Ok.... I guess logic is difficult. (we have two late model vehilcles, one has headlights 26" above the ground, the other has them 43" above the ground)
Back in those 'quad headlight' days, the primary pair that were "on" in the low beam setting also had a second, "high beam" filament that came on in the "high" setting. The secondary pair of headlights only had/have a single "high" beam filament. (Sort of the same concept as a dual filament tail/brake light.) The bulbs and thus the prongs and plugs should be different within each pair. I'm guessing 3 prongs for the high-low and 2 prongs for the secondary high only. It seems like it would be hard to mess that up unless maybe someone, later on, spliced the pigtail plugs into the wiring harness wrong. Do a quick check by covering the secondary pair and see if the primary pair have a hi-low function. And do take a moment to shine the lights on a wall to check the aim. Those 2, one-minute checks will tell you if you have a wiring problem or an aiming problem. *(There was a "cold air intake" fad back in the '60s when cars had those quad lights. I had a friend that removed his "secondary" pair of headlights to make an open pick-up for air ducts to his dual-snorkel air filter. We noticed right away that he still had hi-low beams with just the primary pair.)
Back in the early '70's the California Highway Patrol was setting up random roadblocks and checking cars for mechanical violations. Their cash cow was headlight adjustment since most cars failed. Required adjustment cert. from licensed shop. Fortunately for me, the shop where I worked was the only one in town. We did hundreds of adjustments during that period. We used the Hoppy Lev-L- Lite, same as C.H.P. Just for fun I set up my raised up faux gasser '55 Chevy and volunteered to go through the checkpoint. The cops couldn't believe it when the light adjustment was perfect! https://www.ebay.com/itm/1341348690...EgGwOEjS3XcERg0OeBJ8CzMFjl28WnxN7SgHXUajcgQAo
Yes that works well enough.......Brillant headlights that are properly aimed might be your only hope of seeing that*****ing deer before he jumps out.....
Some comments on headlight adjustment, specifically cars with quad lights... Properly adjusted headlights have been one of the bees in my bonnet for years. Ideally they should be adjusted with a pro adjustment set, but you can get reasonably close without one. The adjustment procedures outline above will work but you do have to pay attention. If you have access to a pro set, these will allow setting without a wall or even having the lights on. On low beam, you want a slight down and to the right bias. It's recommended the same for high beams, but I 'cheat' them higher and straighter, but you'll get 'flashed' at greater distances. These 'approved' settings will be noted in the directions with the adjusters. Adjusting manually. Do the low beams first. If you're using the wall method, look for the low-beam 'cutoff' line. If you have aftermarket halogen lights (and maybe HID and LED) this line will be obvious. If you don't have a sharp line, adjust the low beam light pattern so the brightest part of it is at or below the wall line but none of it should be above the line. This gives your benchmark adjustment that the rest will be based on. Switch to high beam (with the high-only lights disconnected or covered) and note the pattern; do not re-adjust. Now cover the low-high lamps and adjust the high-only lamps to the same. Do make sure you have them pointed straight ahead or (preferably) slightly to the right. Headlight brightness. If you're using standard off-the-shelf sealed beam lamps, be aware that the high beams are actually lower wattage than the low beams. While a typical 7" light will be 50W on low and 55W on high, these are 50W low and only 35W on high. This was done to limit the power requirements and allowed the OEMs to use the same headlight switches with either system. This did offer better lighting over a twin system, but that is due to a much better lens optic design on the high beams without any compromise for the low beam. This is why I don't like those 'conversions' that everybody offers that reuse the OEM lenses on the older cars. The lens really needs to be designed to complement the lamp output and those don't do that. One more note. Properly adjusted headlights will have a pool of light directly in front of the vehicle on low beam. But on high beam, that pool shouldn't be there, it should move well away from the vehicle. This is the major flaw with some of these 'modern' lighting systems IMO. The reason for this is how the human eye works. Our eyes react to light sources, the closer they are the more your pupils close. Most people will perceive this as 'better' lighting but the reality is that limits the distance you can see into the dark. Move the light your eyes 'see' further away and your pupils open up to gather more of that light. Remember, at speed the distance you cover per second goes up, that light close to you is mostly useless as your reaction time is longer than that distance. You can easily demonstrate this with a flashlight. Stand on a lighted porch and shine your flashlight out. It won't yield that much detail as distance increases. Turn off the porch light and try it again... Bones, an upgrade to quality aftermarket 55/60W low beams and 60W highs will give a tremendous improvement in lighting performance but will require that you separate the high-only lamps onto their own circuit operated by a relay. The OEM switch will have no problem with just the low-high lamps, but adding the two high-onlys will overtax the internal circuit breaker in the switch. Having the lights go out at 70mph is too exciting these days... LOL I had a full set of Cibie halogen quads in a Mercury I used to own. At the time I had access to the pro adjuster so these were set as perfectly as I could get them. THE BEST set of headlights I've ever had, these would have usable output to at least 1/2 mile, and would light road signs brightly out to nearly a mile.
The difference between high and low beam aim, is built into the headlight. I always aim them on high beam, to shine straight ahead, or perhaps down a couple inches (at 20ish feet). Then after I get the high beams aimed, the low beams are where they belong, with no extra fiddling. But then, I try to make things as simple as possible. It's a personal failing.
It was snowing a couple weeks back and I wanted to go play in it like the kid I am. Rather than a sled or tube I took out my street legal dune buggy. In addition to the headlights, I hung 2 KC highlighters on the roll bar and another 2 on the front bar over the summer but hadn't used them yet. I pulled out of the drive and hit the switches and all 6 lights were pointing in 8 different directions! If it had been foggy, it would have looked like the spaceship from ET taking off, I grabbed some wrenches and a level place in the road and fine tuned them to my liking.
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