Aiming headlights?
 

I know you use the adjustment screws most visible behind the headlights to raise and lower the beam, but how do you adjust the left and right planes?

I tried using all the phillips screwdrivers I had, but none of them were long enough to reach the adjustment screw deep inside the housing to adjust the left to right aiming.

Does anyone have any idea what I should do?

need help guys...thanks :confused:

The only way you can adjust left to right aiming is to take your headlight off your car. There are two bolts on the backside of the headlight that can do this. The stock aiming "screw" only adjusts vertical aim. You need to be careful when you adjust as the aiming gears strip very easily.

EDIT: I read your post too quickly. It look slike you have your headlight out. You can use a deep socket wrench to get to those screws.

crap...i already put the headlights in...just swapped them...

has anyone actually reached the left / right adjustment screw without taking off the bumper and/or removing the headlight?

it looks like 03-05 aiming screws are different than the 06. I just installed 06 housings, and need to adjust the vertical aim, but now that my housing is already on the car, I can't find any tools that reach to adjust even the vertical aiming screw. maybe i'm just looking at the wrong screw...anyone know exactly where the 06 vertical aiming screw is, and if it's possible to adjust this without taking housing out again?

Yes, I just did that a few days ago.
The aiming screw for verticle is in a different location than the 03-05'. The aiming adjustment is the little bolt that sticks out a little under where the bulb harness sticks out.

The bolt is a 6-point 8mm. Space is pretty tight, because the bolt is very close to the fender-lining. My regular socket wrench would not fit, because my 8mm socket is 1/4" drive, and there wasn't enough room to fit the 3/8" to 1/4" adapter.

So I used a 1/4" drive ratchet (one of those little cute ones), and an 8mm 1/4" drive socket. You will have enough room to go in from the top to adjust the bolt without removing anything, and without using any type of extension. (In fact, you can't use an extension, because the space between the bolt and the fenderlining is only big enough to barely clear my 1/4" drive ratchet head+socket. You will have to force the wrench in a little, to deform the fender-lining a little, but only barely. You will have to be careful when turning the socket. You need to apply constant force to hold the socket on the bolt, because the deformed fender-lining will try to force the socket off. It probably wouldn't matter, I was just afraid that if the socket slipped off while I was adjusting, it would strip the bolt.

You will only have enough room (because of the radiator), to make about 1/8 to 1/4 turns at a time, but it was sufficient. Because of this limited room, you might not get the 6-point socket on the first try. You may have to turn the socket a little, and try again. I suppose you wouldn't have that problem if you used a 12-point socket, but I didn't want to strip the bolt.

And don't drop the socket down there! Maybe it's just my socket wrench, but I've found the locking mechanism on my 1/4" drive ratchet to be useless.

avs007 - thanks for the detailed instruction. i used the same ratched as you did and was able to adjust my aim today.

It sounds to me like the 06 projectors will require aiming? It is not quite straight bolt on? How would you know if you need aiming?

Even the smallest variances in location of your housing (within the bolted position) will cause the light to be aimed in a less than optimal way. The adjustment screws allow for fine tuning to get the perfectly aimed cutoff (vertically and horizontally) Refer to the following link for a guide. When I first installed my housings, the light was way off one side pointed low and only illuminated like 10 ft of ground ahead, and other side was way high. Having projector headlights not aimed will drive you crazy since you can see the crooked lines every time your lights are on.

http://www.danielsternlighting.com/tech/aim/aim.html

To add to this.... I think for the most part, you'll only have to adjust verticle aim. There are 3 bolts on the bottom holding the light, so left/right aim should not be affected by how you mount the housing, as it's pretty solid down there. The top bolt is the one where there is movement, as the housing will tilt back/forward, which of course would affect your verticle aim.

Great input and information guys!!!

According to the aiming procedures we need to determine the type of headlamps we have? Is the 06 projectors type US DOT VOL or US Dot VOR/VO?

Also, when making vertical adjustments using the 6-point 8mm bolt, is the movement being made to the entire housing or the lens/projector inside the housing?

Just the lense. There is a separate bolt (that looks exactly the same) to adjust the fog lights.

I am pretty sure it is US DOT VOL.

I just looked at my headlight. Etched on the housing it says:

DOT D2S VOR

FWIW, my wife's TL's headlamps are also VOR.