tips for aiming headlights

-
DRENO

DRENO

Well-Known Member
Joined
Jul 10, 2009
Messages
4,132
Reaction score
44
Location
Winnipeg,Canada
I put new headlights in 2 years ago and thought it was about time to aim them,lol.Any tips,like parking in front of the garage door and measuring height.Or park it on the street and take some measurements,none of which I know.So what do ya think people?8)
 
I am not much help but, I always just use the garage door method. I just aim them at a point where they are not blinding people coming at me. On the drivers side I aim it a little more to the right and the passenger side gets aimed straight ahead.
 
Try to find a nice level place with a wall, pull right up to the wall and with chalk mark a cross at your head lamps back straight up 25' and aim the beams at the cross. That's the way I do it.
 
Purple Haze said:
Try to find a nice level place with a wall, pull right up to the wall and with chalk mark a cross at your head lamps back straight up 25' and aim the beams at the cross. That's the way I do it.
Click to expand...

Does hi beam or low beam matter when you aim them? I guess you would aim them with the low beams and the high beams would end up being correct.8)
 
Hey Dave if you have trouble, one day we can go by my Dad's shop and have it done with the headlight aiming kit they use. It is quite a cool little gizmo they use that attaches to the lights and uses mirrors. But the old school Wall still works as well just takes a little more time.
 
67DartGT340 said:
Hey Dave if you have trouble, one day we can go by my Dad's shop and have it done with the headlight aiming kit they use. It is quite a cool little gizmo they use that attaches to the lights and uses mirrors. But the old school Wall still works as well just takes a little more time.
Click to expand...

Sounds cool to me.For now I will give it my best shot,thanks Mark.8)
 
There`s a diagram on the site here that gives you the proper measurements for aiming your lights. You can probably find it here with a search.
 
If you can't get your hands on a headlight leveler I use the 6 x 4 method. Park 6 feet away from the wall and aim the lights 4 feet up. Just make sure that the car is level.
 
Aim is the single most important factor in the safety performance your headlamps give you. It deserves more than "Yeah, I guess that's about right" treatment, and "6x4" isn't even close to good enough. What's more, different kinds of headlamps are aimed differently. Read up on how to do it correctly here.
 
............MEASURE FROM THE FLOOR/GROUND UP 2 THE CENTER OF EACH light, then from center 2 center of the lights...........transfer these measurements to a wall or piece of plywood.measure 25 ft from the car to wall.......adj on low beam......if u paint the plywood white, then make some lines up and down then accross u will b bang on every time.............kim................
 
I just go out on the road at night and find a level spot. Then adjust the lights to where I like them. I have always been a proponent of not one size fits all. I must be doing something right because oncoming vehicles don't flash their lights at me and I can see just fine.

Jack
 
Well,I wasn't expecting so many different responses.I rarely drive on the highway,costs too much,so most of my driving is in the city and not too often at night.I wanted to adjust them because i know they are off by a mile,I think they hit the road on low beam about 15 ft in front of the car,lol.Thanks for all the responses.8)
 
When I did state safety inspections at my ex-father inlaws garage the method was 25' from a wall with cross bars centered on the center of the lamps. On low beam the lights were aimed to fall just into the lower right quadrant. The high beam would naturally fall on the center of the cross bars. 4 light systems required you center on the cross bar of the high beam lamps.
 
Coyote Jack said:
I just go out on the road at night and find a level spot. Then adjust the lights to where I like them.
Click to expand...

Wrong way to do it. Not even close to acceptable.

I have always been a proponent of not one size fits all.
Click to expand...

That's fine in things like ice cream flavours and car paint colours and oil filter brand and choice of carburetor, radio station, and shirt, but not in headlamp aim. For any given headlamp mounted at any given height, there is ONE (and only one) correct aim setting.

I must be doing something right because oncoming vehicles don't flash their lights at me
Click to expand...

That is not a reliable gauge of headlamp aim.

and I can see just fine.
Click to expand...

Don't be so sure. The human visual system is a lousy judge of its own performance, especially under the conditions (called "mesopic vision") of night driving. It is very easy to create situations in which we think/feel we can see a lot better or not as well as we actually can.

By-guess-and-by-gosh methods like yours are just plain not good enough, full stop.
 
Not to get in an arguement Dan, but I had my lights "aimed" properly when I had my alignment done. I sure didn't like the results. I couldn't see very far ahead when it was raining at night. The mechanic that did it is also my nephew. I took him for a drive one night when it wasn't raining and he didn't like what he saw either. I run silverstars and they are bright, they just were not aimed where they did any good. We adjusted them to where we could see and then took the car back to his shop. He checked them and they weren't set close to where the aiming equipment said they should be. It may not be the best method in the world, but in this case it worked much better than the aiming equipment.

Jack
 
Coyote Jack said:
I had my lights "aimed" properly when I had my alignment done. I sure didn't like the results.
Click to expand...

Probably because it was done wrong, either because the procedure wasn't done correctly or because the headlamps aren't well enough focused to allow a good aim.

I run silverstars and they are bright
Click to expand...

Nope, they're dim (blue internal bulb blocks a lot of light that would otherwise reach the road) and poorly focused (cruddy optics made on worn-out tooling). Not a good choice, despite Sylvania's heavy advertising hype. GE Night Hawks are much better (and less expensive). See here.
 
Very interesting read Dan, thanks.
Back in the day when I had my first Demon, (1975), I bought it used and the lights were a Halogen set. They had a dead flat surface and were very bright. The thing that I really remember about them is that when on low beam, there was accually a line where the bright light stopped and then diffused light was above that. If that makes any sense to you. I want to say they were Bosch, but can remember for sure. Any idea what they might have been because other than my off road lights I had on one of my trucks, they were the best lights I ever had.

Jack
 
Coyote Jack said:
Very interesting read Dan, thanks.
Back in the day when I had my first Demon, (1975), I bought it used and the lights were a Halogen set. They had a dead flat surface and were very bright. The thing that I really remember about them is that when on low beam, there was accually a line where the bright light stopped and then diffused light was above that. If that makes any sense to you. I want to say they were Bosch, but can remember for sure. Any idea what they might have been because other than my off road lights I had on one of my trucks, they were the best lights I ever had.

Jack
Click to expand...

I still have a set somewhere. They were Lucas Carillo. That pattern was real distictive. They used H4 bulbs & were brighter than anything else aavailable at that time. Be curious to see how they stack up today.
 
A good set of H4 lamps still does great at night compared to most sealed beams. Key word is "good"; there are lots of H4 conversion lamps on the market. Even if you disregard the no-name Chinese junk that's all over the internet and look only at reputable-brand lights (Cibie, Bosch, or Hella -- Carello and Marchal are no longer made) there's still a wide range of performance. See here (also scroll down to post #9 in that same thread).
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
-

Back
Top