Headlight(S) Alignment Position?

[cybercusp]

George-

They were out?! What jackass took the last ones?! Oh, wait..

I have nothing to compare them to but they seem nice and bright. I'd say they're better than the units I had on my '79 Malibu!

[Jonathan]

Thought I'd post my question here instead of in a new thread.

My question on headlight alignment isn't about the brightness or coverage, it's about how to clean up a potentially rusty mess in behind them. My headlight buckets and fasteners don't look pretty and a couple of the screw heads seem covered by the lip of the fascia, like it's not quite in the right position and hiding them slightly.

Can the buckets and whatnot be accessed from the front with the fascia still in place? If the fascia can usually stay on the car in order to do headlight work, I'll likely start into this. If it needs to come off the car to gain proper access, I may wait until the winter as I need parts once in there to address a couple rusty brackets and fasteners around the rockscreen.

I'm optimistic I can get to everything by taking off the grill only, but will wait to hear from someone that might know better. Thanks!

[DMC5180]

Yes, you can remove the headlight buckets first and then the mounting bracket without removing the facia. The outer bracket bolt just needs the right combination socket and extension to fit behind the headlight opening.


Dennis

[DMC-81]

Thought I'd post my question here instead of in a new thread.

My question on headlight alignment isn't about the brightness or coverage, it's about how to clean up a potentially rusty mess in behind them. My headlight buckets and fasteners don't look pretty and a couple of the screw heads seem covered by the lip of the fascia, like it's not quite in the right position and hiding them slightly.

Can the buckets and whatnot be accessed from the front with the fascia still in place? If the fascia can usually stay on the car in order to do headlight work, I'll likely start into this. If it needs to come off the car to gain proper access, I may wait until the winter as I need parts once in there to address a couple rusty brackets and fasteners around the rockscreen.

I'm optimistic I can get to everything by taking off the grill only, but will wait to hear from someone that might know better. Thanks!

Hi Jonathan,

I think the buckets are bigger than the access holes and at a weird angle. Maybe someone else has been able to finagle them out, but if it was me, I'd wait... especially if you are planning on doing the fascias anyway. Plus, when I took my grill off, half of the metal clips that hold it on let go due to rust, so if you remove the grill you may not be able to reattach it properly until you do this as well. Of course, YMMV.

I had great success stripping, sanding, and replating the buckets, springs, and adjustment screws.

Here are a couple pics so you can see what is behind the fascia:

My starting point:
image.jpg

Rusty grill retainers:
image.jpg

Side view:
image.jpg

Top view:
image.jpg

Good luck with the job.

Edit: oops, I didn't see Dennis' reply^

[Jonathan]

Thanks to both of you, that's helpful. And the pictures certainly help getting an idea of what things look like in there. I wasn't sure what I was dealing with with the set of adjustment screws, but now I do.

I know at the very least I'll need some replacements for these brackets:

http://store.delorean.com/p-9707-fro...stainless.aspx

One of them already came out of the car by hand as it was pretty much disintegrated. Likely need a new set of five of them and the fasteners that would go with that. I swear my rockscreen and some of that body moulding/panelling is held in place on my car by The Force, as I can't see how any of the remaining fasteners are doing anything to help. Guess I'll find out for sure once I take it all apart.

The one headlight I wanted to adjust isn't terrible, just pointing up a little more than it should be. Considering everything else on the car is fine and there's only a little while longer for the season here, I will wait to work on all of this until the winter arrives.

[DMC-81]

Thanks to both of you, that's helpful. And the pictures certainly help getting an idea of what things look like in there. I wasn't sure what I was dealing with with the set of adjustment screws, but now I do.

I know at the very least I'll need some replacements for these brackets:

http://store.delorean.com/p-9707-fro...stainless.aspx

One of them already came out of the car by hand as it was pretty much disintegrated. Likely need a new set of five of them and the fasteners that would go with that. I swear my rockscreen and some of that body moulding/panelling is held in place on my car by The Force, as I can't see how any of the remaining fasteners are doing anything to help. Guess I'll find out for sure once I take it all apart.

The one headlight I wanted to adjust isn't terrible, just pointing up a little more than it should be. Considering everything else on the car is fine and there's only a little while longer for the season here, I will wait to work on all of this until the winter arrives.

You're welcome Jonathan. When you get the fascia off and evaluate those 5 brackets and get the replacements, let me know if the replacements still use part SP10158, as they're out of stock at DMC. I don't think so, as the picture in the link above shows a round hole, and the original is a square hole to accommodate an M6 cage nut, like so..

image.jpg

I bought a package of 50 to get mine , so I have spares...

image.jpg

[MML]

Thought I'd post my question here instead of in a new thread.

My question on headlight alignment isn't about the brightness or coverage, it's about how to clean up a potentially rusty mess in behind them. My headlight buckets and fasteners don't look pretty and a couple of the screw heads seem covered by the lip of the fascia, like it's not quite in the right position and hiding them slightly.

Can the buckets and whatnot be accessed from the front with the fascia still in place? If the fascia can usually stay on the car in order to do headlight work, I'll likely start into this. If it needs to come off the car to gain proper access, I may wait until the winter as I need parts once in there to address a couple rusty brackets and fasteners around the rockscreen.

I'm optimistic I can get to everything by taking off the grill only, but will wait to hear from someone that might know better. Thanks!

On a related note, this is a little mod I did recently. I found the self tapping bezel screws were cutting into the newly painted buckets, causing the rust to return. I had some stainless M3 nuts brazed onto the buckets the whole thing zinc plated and used stainless machine screws to hold the bezels on. Hopefully it'll put a stop to the rust!

[Jonathan]

You're welcome Jonathan. When you get the fascia off and evaluate those 5 brackets and get the replacements, let me know if the replacements still use part SP10158, as they're out of stock at DMC. I don't think so, as the picture in the link above shows a round hole, and the original is a square hole to accommodate an M6 cage nut, like so..

image.jpg

I bought a package of 50 to get mine , so I have spares...

image.jpg

Another good picture. I don't think I realized those brackets were held in place with rivets. In fact, it will likely come down to taking it all apart to really see what fasteners go where and which ones I need replacements for... AND which ones you can still buy and which ones you can't. All the more reason to do this job after the season ends since it'll likely take more than one parts order to get what I need and I don't think getting all of what I need in advance is very likely. I'll let you know about those cage nuts. Thanks.

[Jonathan]

You're welcome Jonathan. When you get the fascia off and evaluate those 5 brackets and get the replacements, let me know if the replacements still use part SP10158, as they're out of stock at DMC. I don't think so, as the picture in the link above shows a round hole, and the original is a square hole to accommodate an M6 cage nut, like so..

image.jpg

I bought a package of 50 to get mine , so I have spares...

image.jpg

Was looking at a couple parts I need before putting an order in and noticed a new image on the DMCH store page for the 108466 front fascia bracket part:

http://store.delorean.com/p-9707-fro...stainless.aspx

Looks pretty good, eh? Rivets and the captive nut and the whole shebang. Giddyup.

108466.jpg

[DMC-81]

Was looking at a couple parts I need before putting an order in and noticed a new image on the DMCH store page for the 108466 front fascia bracket part:

http://store.delorean.com/p-9707-fro...stainless.aspx

Looks pretty good, eh? Rivets and the captive nut and the whole shebang. Giddyup.

108466.jpg

Yep, sure does!