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Jittery eye

7

78SilvAnniv

Guest
Yep.
The Passenger side headlight jitters when driving.

With it getting darker earlier I've had to do some evening/night driving and I noticed this on high beam. After I noticed it on high, I now see it on low beam also.

With the engine off and the headlights up I can grab the bezel and wiggle it up and down a small amount. (<1/4") The driver side bezel is nice and tight. Did the paint shop omit something during re-assembly? Is there a rubber gasket that I could be missing? What will tighten up the headlight housing?

Silver
 
Silver,
My guess would be one of three things.
  • The stop mech. on the shaft on the axis of the lamp assy. is a bushing looking thing with an allen screw. The allen screw could be loose.
  • Linkage bushing could be shot. This is on the underside of the lamp assy. and has a screw/bolt that goes through the linkage and through the bushing into the frame of the lamp assy. this bushing could be missing.
  • You could be missing a spring that helps to open and keep the headlights open and closed. These springs are located on the underside of the headlamp assy. and connect to the linkage that has the bushing in it.
Or it could just be the head lights are not mounted correctly.

BudD
:w
 
Rare did a great job covering it for you. However, this topic could not be more timely. You see, I just finished putting my beams all together last night for the very first time in this car. It took me a couple of weeks because I had to order all new parts.

One other possible problem if not the headlight door, is that the bulbs are mounted in some pretty cheap and flimsy plastic retainers. These hold the headlight adjust screws. If one of those is snapped, the counter action with the spring on the other side will make it bounce around, and thus a loose bezel.

The good news is all the parts are available one way or another.

You should take the four screws that hold the inner cover on and remove it. This will expose both headlights on that one assembly. Now you can grab the bezel and bulb and see how much play you have. If it is right at the bulbs, it may very well be what I mentioned. If they are pretty tight, then like Rare pointed out you may have a bushing gone in the assembly elsewhere.

The Paragon Reproductions catalog has a nice blow up picture of the lamps and it makes it easy to pinpoint all the places you have moving parts and bushings or springs that need replacement. I was able to basically get all new or "vintage/used" screws, retainers, adjusters, bezels, bushings, and bolts from them to get mine up to speed.
 
Thanks

I'll check out the Paragon assembly picture. I'm pretty sure it may be the allen screw-thing or the bushing. The entire headlight assembly moves as one unit...not just the bulbs.
Heidi
 

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