aiming halogen headlights

[overbarg]

Greetings all,

I just acquired a 2001 C2 coupe... niiicce... but I have a question. Is there any procedure (measurements) known for the _lateral_ adjustment of the headlights? The users's manual gives the parameters for _vertical_ adjustment, but states that one has to go to the dealer to reset the _lateral_ one. I have the dealers manual as well, and they have some special tool that they can use to quickly measure the beam position... which I don't have.

<deep breath>

Sooo... I picked up my brand new (to me) 911 and the first few nights driving I notice that the passenger side headlight is solely responsible for illuminating the moon (off to the right and very high). I had to take it in to the dealer to get the alarm module reset and I thought, what the heck, I'll get them to re-align the lights too.

When I picked up the car, the guy said that the light aiming mechanism is broken and that I would have to buy another assembly ($1600!). Uh no. I took the headlight assembly out and found that the previous owner had stripped the ribs off the nylon adjusting nuts. I removed the nuts and can adjust the headlight aim by turning the interior adjusting collets with a screwdriver. Cool.

So I can measure out my 7.5 meters and the manual gives me the parameters for vertical adjustment... but not the horizontal (too bad I'm not in the twilight zone).

(oh yeah, these are the halogens... will probably be looking for the litronic replacements at some point, but would like to choose the time of replacement rather than have it dictated to me when I slam into a tree late at night...)

To re-iterate my long drawn out question... does anyone know how to adjust the headlights for lateral aiming _without_ the special measuring tool?

Thanks!

[JeTexas]

Forget measurement. Just shine them on the garage door and adjust them how you like them. Usually you keep the drivers side pretty straight, so it doesn't shine into the eyes of oncoming traffic and the passenger side is ok to shine out to the right a bit.