Fox Headlights

[Rcdgl]

So I got tired of not being able to see at night in my 89 coupe. So I looked up the video on how to adjust the headlights. Then bought the Lisle tool, a glorified 4 mm gear wrench.

Then realized that two of my adjusters were too small for the wrench, and the rest were rusted stuck.

So I just spent two hours removing one headlight and freeing up the adjusters. Replaced one adjuster screw with one from my backyard parts car.

Its working. Saving the pass side for tomorrow.

Can anyone tell me what the metal piece, (reflector?) is for in the housing? It was loose and I was able to wedge it back in.

 

[AeroCoupe]

I believe it is called a bulb shield. From what I have read it blocks unusable waste light that would otherwise cause glare (and backscatter in bad weather). The waste light (backscatter) cannot contribute usefully to the beam. Removing the bulb shield does not (cannot) improve the headlamp's performance in any way.

The 9004 bulbs (at least the Sylvania Silverstar's I have) are blacked/silvered out end of the bulb. I noodled around on the internet and read that the blacked out tip on the bulb is also typically present on 9003/HB2/H4, 9004/HB1, 9006/HB4, 9007/HB5, H7, H8, H11, and H13 bulbs. There were several comments that without the bulb shield built into the headlight housing the blacked out tip on the bulb does a half ass job of controlling stray light. If the reflector in the headlight housing is deep (not sure what deep is) then that helps with controlling the stray light coming out of the headlight assembly. Even then you can get problems with stray light bouncing around inside the lamp and eventually exiting. Basically it sounded like the optimum design is a deep reflector type headlight assembly that has the bulb shield with a blacked out tip bulb.

Not sure if this helped but hopefully its entertaining.

 

[Rcdgl]

Thanks, rained today so I did not fix the right side yet. Took a minute or two to fish the metal reflector back into its slots.

 

[Rcdgl]

For info, the refector is a metal piece about 2 in wide and 1 1/2 in deep, with turned down edges, that snaps into two plastic angles molded to the top of the light housing. The bent 90 deg edges are wedge shaped in profile, as are the plastic mounting angles, so it only fits one way. The flat part has about 6 or 8 1/4 in or so holes in it.

 

[AeroCoupe]

If you could pictures would help a lot but they may be difficult to take being they are inside the housing.