NC Headlight adjustment

[IMMX5]

Just got the car back from some front bumper bar repairs - but the headlights are out of alignment. Anyone have the correct spec's for adjustment?

I have the very basic spec from the manual for the NB - but all it gives is setting it 3m from the wall - no mention of height, spread etc. nor anything for driving beam or high beam.

[Charlie Brown]

I’m interested to find this info also.

And where the hell are the adjusting screws? I’ve had a look and can’t see them.

Since lowering the NC, I’ve been very conscious that the low beams are high. I always get “flashes: from oncoming cars telling me my high beams are on and they’re not.

[Bevan]

Since lowering the NC, I’ve been very conscious that the low beams are high. I always get “flashes: from oncoming cars telling me my high beams are on and they’re not.

How does lowering it make the beams go higher? Is it auto-levelling or something?

[IMMX5]

Guys
The easy part is to make the adjustment - we just need the correct specs - which Mazda seems to be poor with (based on the NB manual!).

To adjust up/down remove the white cap at the rear of the main (driving) light. This exposes a small bolt (6 or 8mm socket - I forget which now) with a large (15mm diameter) washer (which has a serrated 'wrapped over' edge). Easy enough then to work out if CW is down / CCW is up as per the NB8B.

The sideways adjustment I think is done by a similar adjusting bolt. This is more difficult to adjust as access is limited. You can get to the serrated washer thro' a hole on the top outer area of the headlight assembly. If you remove the washer bottle and unclip the wiring loom you can get some access from behind for a small socket. The LHS (near side) is more difficult to get to from behind as one would have to remove the fuse box which is constrained by the wiring loom(s). So adjustment is painfilly done from the top. Having said all this I didn't seem to have much success with the lateral/sideways adjustment.

As the headlight assembly is a single unit I expect the high beam is fixed and thus automatically adjusts with the main beam adjustment.

I'll take a few pics what I tried to describe above and post them - once I work out how to do that!

I still believe mine are set too high (compared to our stable of '97 Corolla and '02 Commodore) - but I've reached the limit of downward adjustment on the RHS headlight - so it needs adjustment as a unit - presumably the bumper bar has to come off etc. etc.

Frankly, the NC headlight beams are awful - my old NB were superior; the garden variety Commodore is excellent by comparison. There has to be a way to improve this??? Has anyone experience with fitting suitable HID's?

Charlie Brown: re Bevan's comment - did you drop the ride height equally front and rear? I reckon you've set the standard with your ride height - looks brilliant.

[IMMX5]

OK - here goes...

This is the plastic cover over the adjuster (RHS headlight)



This is the 8mm adjuster exposed with the 'serrated' washer:



This si the location of what I think is the lateral adjuster:



Hpe this helps...

[Charlie Brown]

Thanks for the photos.

I got the info I was after off miata.net late yesterday and went home last night and popped off the cover on the driver’s side and wound down the beam. Easy.

They referred to a site www.danielsternlighting.com/tech/aim/aim.html that sets out how to correctly adjust your headlights but for a LHD car. I'd assume that for our RHD cars that we will just do a mirror reverse of the settings.

I didn’t have time to find a wall on a level driveway that I can adjust the height correctly, maybe over the weekend.

Bevan, no self levelling so I don’t know why. My NC is now about 43mm lower than standard all round, so I would have thought that the projected height of the beam would have actually dropped slightly.
I don’t noticed the height when I bought the car and a month later it was lowered so I don’t really know if it was a little high to start with.