After the life-threatening experience the night before, it was time to fix the headlights on the E30. As you might remember from my first post, I don't like directions, but I often need them. So I grabbed a screwdriver and went to town on the back of my headlights.
The lights are held in place by 4 things:
- The grille
- The wiring harness
- The adjustment bolts
- The headlight housing (which I would learn about in a moment)
Noticing that the adjustment pins connected to the housing in a way that seemed as though they could be rotated and slid through, I used a flat-head screwdriver to rotate the base of the pins. I painstakingly made it through all three over the course of about 30 minutes, unclipped the harnesses, and slid the headlight out.
I selected the best lens from the collection of lights I received with the car and put it back in. Spinning the adjustment bolts back into place took another 15 minutes, but when finished, the light was bright and clean. Brighter and cleaner than all of the others...
What had I done.
There had to be a better way to remove these. Taking a minute to inspect the front side of the headlight housing revealed three large philips screws that held the entire assembly in place. A quick zip with the impact and another harness for the standard beam pulled the entire assembly out. Unfortunately, because I had already replaced one half of the lenses, I had to do the same for this one, but it was far easier with it outside the car.
From the back of the assembly a pair of needle-nose pliers makes easy work of rotating the adjustment bolts without damaging them. Replacing the lenses is a breeze this way. The right side lenses were even simpler, as I had an entire clean set ready to go on the car.
The difference afterwards was remarkable. I was satisfied, illuminated, and a little cut up, but had the esteem to continue on to the next significant repair: those busted rear shocks.
