Oldracerjones

I live in a pretty small town but never thought it was that small until I tried to find a garage with a headlight adjustment machine. I used them when I was younger but no one had one in any of the garages I checked. Guess I'll have to do it on the garage wall and hope for the best.
Anybody have a better way to adjust them?

jaunty75

The chassis service manual has a non-aiming-equipment method of aiming, and I've always done it that way. You can do a perfectly good job yourself in your driveway if you follow the directions. The aim doesn't have to be perfect down to the nth degree. It just has to be good and not so high that oncoming drivers are blinded.

Allan R

What Dan said^^^. That's how I did mine too. The real test is driving at night after the adjustment. I carried a screwdriver with me to do adjustments on the fly. You also need to go by your legal requirements of the headlight illumination path. Up here the low beams have to show clearly 100 ft, and the high beams 300 ft.

z11375ss

Adjust them onto the roadway, not on a garage door. I know that, anyway.

jaunty75

I do it on a garage door! You don't use the garage door alone. You put up the necessary markings as described in the CSM, and a garage door is a large, flat, outdoor, convenient place to hang them. I make the necessary markings on some pieces of cardboard and tape them to the garage door so the markings are at the specified heights. This way I'm not drawing on the door itself.

But there is nothing inherently wrong with using a garage door. I'm guessing most anyone who does their own headlight aiming uses their garage door.

z11375ss

Last time I adjusted mine my buddy showed me how to do it on a roadway. That way you can actually see what they are lighting up. It worked much better than the door. Just my 2 cents. If you like the door, use it.

jaunty75

Allan is right that a road test is required after the aiming process is completed, and I do that, too. But one can certainly start with the garage door and the method given in the CSM. That'll get your headlight's aim in the ballpark at least.

jag1886

You can look it up on the internet, there is a chart you draw out on a wall and you space the car back so many feet from it and just line them up.
I did this on the wall behind the warehouse I work at, I adjusted them at dusk and it worked perfect, just takes a tape measure and a black magic marker.