Page 1 of 1

Headlight pod upper stop

Posted: 06 Feb 2013 21:10
by darrellw
I noticed that my headlight pods shake a bit when up, so I followed the procedure in the ROM to adjust them, and ended up with the pods quite high before they had sufficient pressure on the upper stop. In fact, they don't have enough adjustment to now sit flush when closed, and the lower stop isn't long enough to come into play, either. I can't find any other fault in the linkage (you might recall that the e-clip was missing on one side, getting that back secured helped the passenger side quite a bit), and after more examination I believe that the alloy bracket has some kind of rubber or plastic buffer.

The parts book does not seem to list that part, and I can't tell if it should be rubber or plastic. I haven't yet tried to remove the remains on mine, but from what I can feel they are quite hard, which could be plastic or petrified rubber.

You can kind of see it in this picture:

http://www.rimmerbros.co.uk/ImagePopUp.aspx?i=RTC1411

It almost looks like part of the sheet metal stop in that view, but I believe it is showing the black bumper in the alloy bracket. BTW, if you need the entire mechanism, Rimmer is selling them for 10 quid at the moment.

So, does anyone know what type of material I should be looking for, and even better, some rough idea on what size it ought to be?


Darrell Walker
66 TR4A IRS-SC CTC67956L
81 TR8 SATPZ458XBA406206
Vancouver, WA, USA

Posted: 06 Feb 2013 23:26
by FI Spyder
I had the same problem on the LH side (light wobbling when up). Adjust turnbuckle for one stop and nut locked stop for other direction. The adjustment is spelled out in the OEM manual. The LH side was way out. I went through the procedure on the right as a matter of course. The pods sit up slightly proud which could be corrected by loosening the four mounting bolts and moving them down but not out enough to bother unless I had the FI air filter (on right) and A/C stuff out (on left) for other reasons.

Can't recall material on the fixed stop.

- - -TR7 Spider - - - 1978 Spitfire- - - - 1976 Spitfire - - 1988 Tercel 4X4 - Kali on Integra - 1991 Integra - Yellow TCT
Image

Posted: 07 Feb 2013 09:58
by Beans
Check the plastic bushes on both sides of the pivot point at the back of the alloy part.

<center>Image
<font color="blue"><i>1980 TR7 DHC (my first car, now restored and back on the road)
1981 TR7 FHC Sprint (better known as 't Kreng)</font id="blue">
<b>[url="http://www.tr7beans.blogspot.com/"]<u><b><font size="3"><font color="red">My full Weblog</font id="red"></font id="size3"></b></u>[/url]</b></i></center>

Posted: 07 Feb 2013 12:38
by Vegas_M
<blockquote id="quote"><font size="1" face="Century Gothic, Verdana, Arial, Helvetica" id="quote">quote:<hr height="1" noshade id="quote"><i>Originally posted by Beans</i>

Check the plastic bushes on both sides of the pivot point at the back of the alloy part. <hr height="1" noshade id="quote"></font id="quote"></blockquote id="quote">

Actually, not all headlight brackets have these bearing inserts. I have four headlight mechanisms on my workbench right now and three of them have a stainless rod as the pivot support, pressed directly into the aluminum bracket. The 3rd one is different, with a slightly smaller outside diameter rod, with bushings pressed into the aluminum housing. I'll try to get some pictures and post tonite.

M.

Martin

[url="https://docs.google.com/leaf?id=0BxOL0HRH5pDeNWRlOTVhZjgtMWE1Mi00ZWNiLWE3ZGYtOWNiODU1Y2JjOGQ0&hl=en_GB"]My TR7v8 Document Repository[/url]

Posted: 18 Feb 2013 02:50
by Vegas_M
Here are two pics of the two types of headlight pivots that I am aware of. One from a USA convertible (left), the other from a Canadian hardtop (right). Both 1980 models.

Image

Image

Neither of these had any discernible wear, although both have the centre cross bar broken by previous owners trying to force them up or down.




Martin

[url="https://docs.google.com/leaf?id=0BxOL0HRH5pDeNWRlOTVhZjgtMWE1Mi00ZWNiLWE3ZGYtOWNiODU1Y2JjOGQ0&hl=en_GB"]My TR7v8 Document Repository[/url]

Posted: 18 Feb 2013 13:52
by darrellw
Hi Martin,

Thanks for the pictures!

-Darrell

Darrell Walker
66 TR4A IRS-SC CTC67956L
81 TR8 SATPZ458XBA406206
Vancouver, WA, USA