Aiming headlights

[jwfchase]

Can the low beam lights on a Depo headlight be adjusted? Mine seem to point into the ditch and only light up (though very brightly!) about 20ft in front of the van. A little unnerving on highways at night when I switch to low beam for oncoming drivers.

[Delicanadabc]

Hello

You sure can. There are two philips (10mm) at the bottom of the pod just 1 cm about the bumper. One is for Hi the other Low. That said as you probably know the Delica head light is not all that good! But depending on where you inspected your van it should have been adjusted at that time. That is, be careful not to aim them too high. The trick if you really have to do it with out the proper tool is. Drive up to a wall about 1 m away, mark the height then back up on a level ground about 5-6 m from the wall and focus your lights so the top of the beam is no higher then at 1 m.The passenger side should favor to the side of the road away from the centre line so to speak.

Good luck,
Daniel

[lrp374]

Thanks for the info. I was about to ask the same question.

[MardyDelica]

hi, yes, they are both adjustable. low beam & high beam.
cheers;
mardy

[Erebus]

There are actually 4 adjustment screws on each pod. One each for low beam left/right, one for low beam up/down, and two more for high beam up/down and left/right.

Find level flat parking lot or something with wall. Drive up perpendicular to wall. Mark X (e.g., with masking tape) on wall in front of each headlight.

Back up 25 feet.

For low beam, the horizontal cutoff should be 4" below the horizontal at 25 feet. The centre spot (where the beam starts to rise) should be straight in front of that light.

Then cover the low beams with black paper or something, then aim the high beams so the bright spot of centre is on your X, biased towards being above it.

Go for test drive. Repeat until satisfied.

Something I discovered living here in the open flatlands is that the high beams should be aimed slightly lower than if you regularly drive in forested areas. In the forest, the high beam lights up the trees, illuminating anything around. In the baldass flat prairie, there are no trees and the lights just "illuminate" the sky. So you want to aim a little lower to actually illuminate the ground.

Keywords for searching: headlight headlights lowbeam lowbeams low beam highbeam highbeams high beam aiming

[FalcoColumbarius]

For low beam, the horizontal cutoff should be 4" below the horizontal at 25 feet.

My book (Russek) says two inches below the horizontal at five metres (16 and a bit feet).

[Erebus]

Ya, so? Just 'cause Russek is right and I'm wrong is no reason to point it out!

Okay, I should have looked it up before posting. Here are two links:

Automedia
It says 2 inches, and has clear instructions with photographs.

Canadian Driver doesn't have photos, but has some legal info.