Headlight repairs

[Shoppinit]

Has anyone taken their headlight apart?

One of mine is drooping again

I think vibrations and bumps in the road are causing it to jump cogs or something.

Anyway, if anyone has had one apart for a similar reason, then I'd be interested in knowing.

CheeRS

[bakustax]

I failed my MOT on this...I managed to get the back off it...couple of clips..... and grab hold of the stalk (ooer sounds a bit rude) and pull the droopy part (sounds even ruder!!) back up into line....It is currently held in place with a wad of silicon........not ideal Shop but it got it thru it's MOT

[Shoppinit]

Ok Cool. Was it obvious what was broken? I could probably cobble something together if necessary.

[bakustax]

It's the white cog that goes...heat from the lights makes it brittle...it's a fairly easy job and worth doing....the Garage that failed me on th MOT priced up a new headlight...£570+VAT.....Good God!!!

[Shoppinit]

Thanks Did you take the headlight out? Or were you able to get to it in-situ?

[bakustax]

In situ....It's very easy...not the easiest to describe but once your looking at it, it will become clear...I was told it's a very common problem in all cars with xenon lights..the heats to much for the 4p plastic cogs

[fox]

Has anyone taken their headlight apart?

One of mine is drooping again

I think vibrations and bumps in the road are causing it to jump cogs or something.

Anyway, if anyone has had one apart for a similar reason, then I'd be interested in knowing.

CheeRS

I took mine to bits the other day to reseal them.
Wasn't a bad job, except you need a long Torx screwdriver to get to the secret screw down the hole in the wing.
Undo the screws, twist the headlamp so the outboard edge tucks under/into the wing, ping the round plastic post off the rad(?) support, and out it'll come, with some wiggling to clear the xenon igniter box.
Unping the clips (4x?) and then g-e-n-t-l-y prise the two halves apart. I wussed out of putting them in the oven to soften the glue.
A good squidge of Sikaflex around the joint and they're nice and sealed again.
Can't help with your drooping issue though. Haven't experienced that
That said, my xenons point in completely different directions ATM, so maybe I've got that to come...
Al.

[bam_bam]

Xenonagra will only fix the droop for 3-6 hours, known side-effects include a blue tinge to your illuminations and all BMW's within a 300 mile radius get tailpipe raped.

[Shoppinit]

I definitely have some kind of xenile dysfunction

I tool the back off and you can see inside reasonably well. Problem is, I can't see anything wrong.

The adjuster adjusts, the motor motes.

Could be a bad stepper motor, I suppose. I've had to adjust the headlamp aim as high as it will go. This can't be good. Looks like I'm going to have to take the headlight apart to see what's going on. Something's out of whack. Oh well, bumper off again...

[Shoppinit]

It's the white cog that goes...heat from the lights makes it brittle..

This white cog... presumably you don't mean the one on the outside of the headlight that you use to adjust the aim? Is there another one inside?

[bakustax]

My problem was the white cog on the outside was shagged and failing to do anything meaningfull when trying to adjust....As before a bit of ....good old Scottish word here...fichering...and the beam can be adjusted on the stalk and silicon the white cog to hold the beam at the desired level

[Shoppinit]

THanks. That's what I thought you meant. No, my problem is not there, it's inside somewhere. Possibly on the other end of the stalk that goes from the cog you're talking about.

I'm gonna go and play with it some more...

[bakustax]

Oh....It could be a bit more problematic then...Good luck I think if the stalk has let go from the otherside it's a bit of a nightmare...Sorry

[bam_bam]

...xenile dysfunction...

*snigger* Good one.

[mrmule]

Oh well, bumper off again...

You're taking the bumper off to get the headlight out?