Healights All Over The Place

[Bigbenstrikes]

Hi guys!

My headlights are all over the joint! Ive had a wee look about and the adjusters are pretty tight! I have the vertical adjuster in the car but it doesn't work. There are thin plastic pipes going towards the lights but not attached to them.. The adjuster and the bottom the headlight, one of them works when you twist the fat plastic bit but the passenger side one that is missing but there is a screw there? The horizontal adjusters are so hard to turn and i dont think they are doing anything.. I know i can replace them but its more the vertical ones im wanting to sort out as one points at the floor whilst the other at the sky. Also can you adjust the main beam?

Cheers

Ben

[PG325]

You can aim both lights using the adjusters, mine were tight so I dismantled everything, wire brushed the adjuster threads and greased all 8 back, now they spin freely and adjusting was a piece of p for the mot man!

[Bigbenstrikes]

I was thinking that might just do it.. Is it a piece of piss to remove the headlights? How do you adjust the bottom ones if theyre attached to that in car adjuster thingy?

[Brianmoooore]

I was thinking that might just do it.. Is it a piece of pee pee to remove the headlights? How do you adjust the bottom ones if theyre attached to that in car adjuster thingy?

The threaded steel rod that goes forwards from the cylinder to the headlamp is a coarse adjustment (cross head slot in the ball at the front end of the rod), and the knurled outer sleeve of the cylinder is a fine adjuster.
If the hydraulic cylinders have failed, the headlamp aim defaults slightly to low to be adjusted with the fine adjuster, so the usual procedure is to screw the centre rod out a couple of turns, then fine tune with the outer knurled ring.
To remove the headlamps, take off the grills, and you will see three large cross head self tapping screws. The holes in the headlamps are much larger than the screws, so mark around the light brackets so that you can refit them in the exact same place.
The cross head screws can be difficult to undo - I've no idea why BMW didn't use hex. headed screws!
The plastic buckets that the ball end of the adjusters fit into tend to be a bit fragile, and may need replacing.

[Bigbenstrikes]

Hey brian! Cheers for that! I shall give it a bash! Ill strip them down and grease them for the MOT man! Just went to BMW to price up the adjusters and they are a tenner each! And theres 8!? Is that right?