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MG TD TF 1500 - Headlight aiming

Anybody know how to aim the headlights on a TD? I have used in the past the old tried and true "eyeball" method, but there must be a better way. I looked at my TD books and there is a great diagram but it is missing all the numbers, ie distance from target, spacing betweeen beams, etc. Anybody have a better method? Thanks, Rob
Rob Silverman

Rob - I have a sure fire method. I take the car to a garage that does headlight aiming and let them do it. Of course this only works if you are useing sealed beam or the late model halagon lights that have the three aiming tits on the face of the headlight lens. Good luck - Dave
David DuBois

I have long wondered the same thing as Rob, how to adjust the headlights on my TD. I have asked two garages and they both said they don't have the "specs" for a car that old and therefore can't adjust them. I have modern sealed-beam lights with the little raised tits. Were they just giving me the run-around? Joe
Joe Holtslag

Joe - I had the headlights on my TD aligned about 15 years ago and the same thing done on my Magnette and MGB not more than 10 years ago. I did not see them refer to any kind of referance book or chart to do the job. They were using alignment boxes that were held onto the lights by a suction cup and indexed on the three tits that protrude from the face of the lights. The lights were leveled using a bubble level in the boxes and then aimed by sighting through the boxes themselves. Unfortunately, the service station that did all this for me has been converted into a mini-mart (I guess it is more important to sell people food and beer than fix their cars anymore), so I'm not sure where I'll go the next time I need this service. I do know that I see an awful lot of cars with poorly aimed headlight when I am driving home from work each night (I work swingshift), some of them do a better job of illuminating the underside of underpasses than the road, so it may not be able to find a place to get headlight aimed anymore.
Good luck - Dave
David DuBois

I just did this on my MGA and am happy with the results. I think the most important thing is to have the lights equal on the vertical axis. I parked the car in front of my garage door about four feet away. I equalized the height buy using a section of the door as a mark to go by. I then went out for a drive to see how far out the low and high beams went, and adjusted to what seamed right. Here is where you also look to see if they are aiming off to the right or left as well. Take your screw driver with you and adjust ahoy. No one gives me the old high beam shot when I have the low beams on, so I have to figure they are low enough. Finally, go stand out in front of the car and see what they look like from the front and from the side as if you are an oncoming car. If they look equal in intensity, they are pretty close.
R.G.
Roger Graham

Thanks for the ideas guys. I have had the same problem with my garage, they claim that since they don't have the correct specs on the car, the headlights can't be aimed correctly. I guess I'll stick to the eyeball method and trial and error.
Rob Silverman

Joe,
This has worked for me. Park your other car, assume you have one, about 8 feet from the back of your garage, wall, etc. Make sure it is level and perpendicualt to the wall (reasonably so) and mark the position of the front tires on the floor. Take some masking tape and place it at the horizontal center line of the brightest spot of the light, then another piece at the vertical center of the bright spot(like a "plus" sign). Do the same for the other head light. Measure and mark a the center line of the two and bring it out from the wall to the place you marked the position of the front tires. Bring the MG in and park it, front tires on lines and in center. Turn on the lights and adjust the bright spots to the marks on the wall. Takes a little time and you need someone to guide you on to the floor marks.
Harley Weyand

I can't understand those garage guys saying they do not have the specs for such a car. The specs here are defined by the law and are not specific to any vehicle. All must light the same part of the road at the correct height. When you pass the local equivalent of the British MOT, that's what they'd check. I also have my garage adjusting them - once every six years, say.

Denis
Denis L. Baggi

Harley's method would work well only if the other car was a TD. If you adjust the lights to the same place on the wall as a car with lower placed and wider spaced headlights than the TD, which means about everthing except maybe a Jeep, the light pattern would be crosseyed and entirely too low.
George B.

I had my TD lights set several times over the years by a shop which used an optical/mirror system adjustable for height on a track set in the floor. This was part of a safety inspection that was once required by South Dakota law. The lights are initially set while on high straight ahead and so many degrees down. They then checked the low, and if the lights were to high or to far left they compensated for it. There was no chart used. The lights just had to be so many degrees down, and the left low beam so many extra degrees right. The left low beam is pointed futher to the right than the right low beam. I had them do the lights while I sat in the car.

Not too many years ago, I had a garage set the lights on another vehicle using one of those sets of black suction cup outfits. They were so far off, that I took it back and eventually did it myself out on a little traveled road using the screw driver method as others have described.
Blake J.

There have been several references to the "screwdriver" method in adjusting TD headlights. I don't have any places on my headlamps to adjust. I have to loosen the large mounting nuts that hold the headlamp buckets to the support brackets. Do you guys have headlamps that you can adjust within the bucket?
Joe Holtslag

Joe

TD headlights are similar to those on the Y types. Use the mounting nut. I find that having it snug when moving helps. I have, for the past 30 years, put the Y 10 to 15 feet away from the garage door. I measure the height of the center of the headlight and mark this height on the door. I then sight down the centerline of the car and mark this on the door. Measure the distance between the headlight centers and mark this on the door at the measured height evenly spaced on each side of the center mark. I then adjust the high beams to that the centers of the bright spots are on these marks. Gives a high beam parallel to the road, which gives great illumination at night. Low beams dip far enough that have never had a problem with oncoming cars. As a last resort, you can get an inexpensive headlight adjuster from JC Whitney that matches up with the raised tabs on the sealed beam bulbs. This also seems to work well.

Larry
Lawrence Hallanger

This thread was discussed between 29/08/2000 and 12/09/2000

MG TD TF 1500 index

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