240 General: 244 Headlamp Adjusters

[Othen]

Hi again,

My 1980 244 has the rectangular type headlamps, like this:



I have just recently acquired the car and had noticed the headlamps being a bit poor by modern standards. Everything checks out electrically, and the glass and reflectors seem fine, so I wondered whether it could just be poor alignment.

I had a look at the adjusters today, which was not a good news story. there seems to be just a single adjuster at the top, a sort of screw through a nylon block into a ball joint that pivots the light up or down a bit. On the left side the nylon block had sheered off some time ago, so the adjuster wasn't particularly doing anything useful:



I took it apart, removed the broken nylon collar and have sandwiched the bracket between two nuts on the existing screw to allow for some adjustment like this:



I think it will work, when it gets dark enough this eve I'll see what the light pattern looks like against the garage door. I suspect the alternative would be to buy a complete headlamp, which would seem a pity for a single adjuster screw.

In the right side the story is slightly different, the nylon part is complete, but the ball end of the adjuster screw seem to be rusted into its socket. I've soaked it in penetrating oil and will see if I can get it moving tomorrow:



... I'll report on progress... and if anyone knows a better way of doing this I'd really like to hear from them :-)