Aiming headlights

The after market replacement cases for the HID to Halogen conversion aren't a very high quality build. I've yet to install a pair that were properly aimed. Sometimes the beam adjustment screw is problematic too, so sometimes you have to put shims under some of the 3 main bolts that hold the headlight case in place.

 

Okay with good LEDs indexed properly at 3:00 and 9:00 in the housings you want to look and see if your yellow dots are at 3:00 and 9:00 If that's not the case that needs to be corrected if the bulbs are cheap they're not indexable if they're made by well the company I use a plastic housing goes in the hole and then you can turn the actual lamp assembly and heat sink I don't know man about 80° anyway we'll say that you're at 3:00 and 9:00 now what you need to do on the halogen assemblies is on the very forward adjuster it's right next to the rate that flanks the radiator You see the little silver screw it's got serrated edges on it looks like you stick a Phillips head and turn You need to crank those down righty tighty about eight and a half turns every time you twist your hand as a half a turn with the screwdriver when you do that if it's dark you'll all of a sudden see the cutoff of the lamp just start to appear now you should have the car on a level driveway X amount of feet away from the garage door and put that line of the headlights where it's supposed to be I have no idea what it is you can Google it You're not worried about side to side aim this is just up and down usually from just a change from halogen to LED around 8 and 1/2 turns righty tighty on each of the screws should put you seeing the cut off now you need to measure up the garage door at so many feet and set the cut off to that line.

 

Even my cheap halogens have been no problem to aim If you can't do it with the screwdriver you can use the I think it's a 10 mm It might be an eight and you just turn it righty tighty about eight half turns that would be four complete turns you'll see the cutoff like I said above coming up even on my cheapest headlight assemblies when I turn the forward screw righty tighty you can see the chrome piece lifting up or turn it the other way and it goes back down I haven't had to use any cardboard or any shims with any of the headlights we have bought so far so I guess I haven't gotten cheap enough.

 

When they install stuff on the outside of the space station, they put a marker on their screw driver gun and have multiple people count the number of rotations. I did that once when replacing a ballast on an HID headlight case. It works pretty well

What I'm not clear on is aren't some Prius headlights self-adjusting? As in a little motor on that screw and some kind of sensor?

 

Yes if you convert an HID generation 2 Prius and leave the housings in place and you plug in say the aux beam D4 whatever those things are called that we're replacing in the HID car when you put the plastic piece in the housing that you're going to shoot the headlight bulb tube and heat sink into that hole you can turn that an index the beams at 3:00 and 9:00 then for the self-adjusting business I haven't looked in the manual but it looks like there must be some kind of an override and if you look in the back of the car for your automatic headlight adjuster I have pictures if you give me an email I'll send them to you You can see on the headlight adjuster that's under the rear of the car there's a keystone flat sticking out of the back of the headlight adjuster and it looks to me like you can take a pair of pliers and lift up and down or righty tighty lefty loosey on the automatic adjuster flat and that will adjust both headlights up and or down to compensate for God knows what well in this case LED off shoot. So I was looking the manual which apparently is on here somewhere on HID headlight adjustments and I believe it'll talk about setting the two headlights by doing it from the back at the auto adjuster and if you need to bring them in alignment to each other you would tweak the rider the left side so you'd adjusted in the back to get the cut off where you want say the right side was a little low you would adjust the right side righty tighty until it matched with the left shining on the garage door and by right I think it should hold then any undulations in the car and the adjusters will adjust from the point you just set
Let me know if the manual says that this is wrong thanks.

 

yes, please email: peacefromtrees at gmail.com

 

If the aim is as far off as the OP makes it sound, I would want to look first at how the headlight housings were installed to the car ... some overlooked loop of wire or a washer or a maple seed under a mounting flange, that sort of thing.

After eliminating anything like that and getting them snugged down squarely to the mounts, then try to get them pointed right, within the range of the adjusting screws.

 

I think i'd take it back to whomever did that work. There's only so much range of adjustment in a given headlight. What you're describing sounds waaay off, potentially beyond what the adjusters can let you recover from.

 

I've done lots of these and main problem is the mount on the top rear of the assembly usually gets damaged during shipping or damaged soon after installation. To be clear this is an aftermarket design that's obviously inferior, but the amount of movement in the headlight from that busted back rear mount may well be sufficient enough to properly adjust the headlight beam. Got a couple Gen2 at start of year to try this idea on and will update once I know more. If you have any ideas on how to modify that mount once broken I'd greatly appreciate it as long as it doesn't include liquid steal epoxy which has always failed.

 

The rear being where it comes to a point the front I guess is the very bottom of the headlight at the very front of the car I'll have to look at these mounts I have millions of these headlights out and off the car I don't have any broke the generation 3 I have a few broke

 

Gosh I thought other than bending and flexing the fingers on the bottom of the generation two headlight It was pretty solidly in its amount along the edge of the fender and all of that The mount points on the newer lights Yes they're weaker the plastic but as long as you're careful and you line them up the bolts usually go in and everything usually does pretty well including the finger sliding into the bracket or fitting that they go into to hold the front of the lights down I was always wondering if I was to remove this finger assembly would make the lights a lot quicker to remove just put a dab of goop on that front lip when you install the light and it should stay there for years when you're forced to change it pry up the goop with a plastic splooge undo the 210s lift and pull the light forward it would seem like that would work without having to remove the fender line or and all that nonsense but I haven't had time to try it I rarely pull the original lights off unless they're broken in an accident they are 10 times better than the replacement so sanding and cleaning them is always an option look at that thick lens on an original headlight assembly You can hit it with a hammer.

 

The Toyota headlights have screw bosses molded in next to the original molded tabs. If a molded tab breaks off, you sand away the broken part, buy the metal replacement tab from Toyota for cheap, attach it with the screws, and Bob's your uncle.

I don't have a Gen 2 repair manual open right now, but that's how it's done in Gen 1 and Gen 3, so it would be weird if Gen 2 was different. Search the manual for the magic words "headlight protector retainer".

Of course, if it's an aftermarket housing, who knows if it also has those screw bosses molded in next to the tabs, or in the right places to fit the Toyota repair bits?

 

Yeah... Several pairs of Gen2 HID headlight cases I swapped out went to the landfill because there's no metal screw boss on the plastic tab on the back top. I wanted to ship them to people for free on PriusChat if they paid for shipping and had people who wanted that, but in order to protect that one plastic tab from busting in shipping, let alone from busting on my crowded spare parts rack got me to decide that I don't want to risk screwing over a fellow Priuschatter if the tab busts in shipping. It's happened to me more than once buying aftermarket halogen cases. And granted if I just used a really huge box I could of protected them, but that tends to double or triple the price of shipping.

 

PS: I see replacement tabs availble for Gen3, but not for Gen2. :'-(

 

That's right about eight half turns righty tighty of the very forward adjuster the one that's right there next to the side of your radiator on each side of the car If you're adjusting those righty tighty brings the beam down towards the ground You're up in the sky or you were so turning right brings the chrome trim plate inside the lighthousing down towards the ground which is where you want to go If you do this in the evening doing that many turns should bring the LED cutoff line which is a flat line of light right across your garage door then with the car sitting approximately 20 ft from the garage door you set that cut off line at whatever you read online about aiming your headlights on the garage door I want to say it's 34 in off the ground or something like that about as high as your stovetop or something similar to that seriously. So you're close I use the quarter inch drive socket on a little extension to do this doesn't really matter what you use a zebra clamp spring adjusting tool works well most people won't know what zebra clamps are but oh well.