E30 Smileys poor light pattern?? Help!!

[austindav123]

Anyone had anyluck renovating a set of smileys? or know what goes wrong with them to cause poor light pattern?? mine are like glow worms in a jar??

[HairyScreech]

Dirt on the inside of the projector lens.

They are not perfectly sealed when new let alone after 25 years, taking them off and giving the lenses a swill out can do wonders.

[austindav123]

thanks mate will give it a go

[HairyScreech]

There might even be a guide in the Wiki.

[Brianmoooore]

Clarification needed. Is the problem that the lights are dim, have an incorrect beam pattern, or just the correct beam pattern aiming too low?
Do you have a beam height adjuster on the under dash panel? When these systems fail, which they nearly all have by now, they default to their lowest setting, bringing the extremely sharp beam cut off line far too close to the car. This should definitely result in a MOT test failure, but some testers will let them through, either because they don't check them properly, or misguidedly think they are doing you a favour by allowing them to pass.

[TriggerFish]

If you do take them apart, be careful of the white lines on the inside of the glass (the light, not the projector).

The lines come off really easily, as I found out after putting a tiny mark in my otherwise perfect headlights :'(

[austindav123]

lights are dim and also there is a sharp line in the projection of the beam and no light goes past that point the sharp line is around 6 foot in front of the car so in the dark not the best to drive

[BenHar]

They are aimed too low as Brian said above.

The sharp line is the cut off for the top of the beam and should be a lot further ahead.

Ben

[austindav123]

okay cheers guys will have to pull the pods out as the adjusters have seized

[Brianmoooore]

Does this mean you have the hydraulic adjusters? They hydraulic cylinders have two adjusters built into them. The fine adjustment is by rotating the outer, knurled part of the cylinder, which is plastic turning on plastic, so shouldn't normally seize. Unfortunately, there isn't enough adjustment in these to bring the beams up to the correct height, so the coarse adjusters need to be wound out a bit as well. These are the threaded steel rods that run forwards from the cylinders to the back of the headlamps, and need to be screwed out about three full turns. This can be done in situ with suitable grips on the rods, and brings the alignment into the range covered by the fine adjusters.
The limits of misalignment allowed by the current MOT test is very small (tightened up a few years ago), so the MOT man can tweak them for you before your next test, if you ask nicely AND the adjusters move freely.