How to Aim Car Headlamps
Auto headlamps provide light at night for driving safety. Daytime use of the lights provides extra visibility to other drivers. In order to work properly and safely, headlamps need to be aligned so that the beams do not impede other drivers coming from the opposite direction while still illuminating the road in front of you. You can align your vehicle's headlamps with vertical and horizontal adjustment screws in about 45 minutes.
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Things You'll Need
- White wall or garage door
- Phillips or flathead screwdriver
- Black electrical tape
- Tape measure
- Colored chalk
Instructions
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1
Measure a distance of exactly 25 feet from the door of the garage or a wall. Park the vehicle, with the headlamps pointing at the wall, at the 25-foot mark. With the chalk, mark the garage door with a straight line drawn across it at headlight level. Place a large plus sign (+) above the first third and last third of the line. Draw a large "O" in the center.
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2
Open the car hood to expose the vertical adjustment screws on the headlamps. Prop open the hood. Find the adjustment screws through the dedicated slot in the headlamp mounting bracket. The head of the screw faces up to the hood.
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3
Turn on the headlamps so that they point at the line. Place the headlamps into the low-beam setting. If the lights are higher than the plus signs above the line, turn the headlight vertical adjustment screws to the left to lower them until they reach the plus sign. Adjust until the headlamp low-beam setting light displays the top of the beam 3 inches above the center chalk line. The headlamp bottom line should be 2.1 inches below the chalk line.
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4
Go to the front of the headlamps and locate the horizontal adjustment screws; they usually are located in the top right-hand corner of the mounting bracket. Turn the screws to the left or right to adjust the horizontal settings of the lights until they reach the plus signs. These plus signs are the "kink" marks for the headlight alignment. The "kink" is a bend in the headlight beam that allows the two lights to move toward each other when aligned.
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5
Adjust the horizontal screws until the light beams are within 2 inches of the plus signs.
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Tips & Warnings
Align headlamps only on the low-beam setting. Headlights are designed to be aligned on the low-beam setting, not the high-beam setting.
References
- Photo Credit headlights image by jimcox40 from Fotolia.com
