MG4 Trophy headlamp adjustment

[Ejaydee]

My main beams were also illuminating the trees so I took it into the dealers a couple of days ago. They spent about 10 minutes doing lots of adjusting and I tried the lights the next night and guess what? The main beams are now significantly lower than the dipped beams.....I will adjust them myself in future!

 

[Cloggsy]

My dipped beam was badly adjusted when I collected it. I had to drive around with the lights in position ’2’ to prevent dazzling anyone. When the car went in for its first service, I asked them to adjust the headlights, expecting them to put it on a headlight MOT testing rig to adjust them correctly. Nah, they just wound them right down, so the throw of the beam was 15’ in front of the car… The high beam shines up into the trees. Bloody useless! Now can’t get back into the dealers to get them to sort it until mid January, do having to pay another garage with an MOT headlights test rig to redo them, as it is bloody dangerous driving in the dark at present…

They

My main beams were also illuminating the trees so I took it into the dealers a couple of days ago. They spent about 10 minutes doing lots of adjusting and I tried the lights the next night and guess what? The main beams are now significantly lower than the dipped beams.....I will adjust them myself in future!

They’re a bunch of morons aren’t they…

 

[Tigger]

My concern is with the horizontal alignment and whether the step down point (the left part of the beam is higher than the right) is too far to the right.

Can you be more precise about what you mean by the 'step down point;? If you look at the top pic in @Bricktop1967's post above, you will see that the whole beam is basically flat from left to right - exactly like mine was,

I want to know because I have to readjust mine as the left beam has now been adjusted way up when they did the service last week . . .

 

[mg4mc]

?? His beam has a visible step in it - Just like mine.

MG4 Trophy headlamp adjustment

OK, so on the Trophy lights there are separate adjusters for low and high beam. I'll try tweaking the low up a tad, and the high down a bit. I recently replaced the lamp units on my Honda so I still have a board handy to check them - just need it to be dry... 1 - Low vertical horizontal 2 -...

www.mgevs.com

 

[Tigger]

What I'm querying is @ardsar's statement that 'the left part of the beam is higher than the right' (providing the 'step down', I presume). It sounds as if he is adjusting his left headlight up a bit, then wondering what to do about the horizontal setting.

This is interesting - I just want to knoiw if my interpretation is correct. @Bricktop1967 does not do this - his left beam is the same height as his right beam,.

 

[mg4mc]

The red is the lefthand lamp, the blue is the righthand lamp.

They are both lower on the RHS with a step up to the LHS.

Because the car is close to the wall they are shining on they appear separate, but with distance they will merge into single beam pattern lower on the right than the left.

 

[fnegroni]

It’s interesting because I remember having to align my rx-8’s xenon headlamps once and the recommended pattern was that the lower part of the left headlamp beam should align with the higher part of the right headlamp beam.

On my mg4 the pattern right now is as stated by @mg4mc above.

I wonder why with the xenon lamps of old the recommended pattern was different

 

[mg4mc]

I have xenon's on my weekender and those are aligned the same as my MG - lower and upper sections of both sides aligned with each other. It passes MoT, but then they normally test each side individually is within the permitted limits.

 

[Tigger]

The red is the lefthand lamp, the blue is the righthand lamp.

Interesting . . . Here is my equivalent picture, which appears to be the same for the right headlight, but different for the left:

 

[mg4mc]

Looks the same to me, your LH lamp being a bit lower than your RH...

Looks the same to me, your LH lamp being a bit lower than your RH...

It helps to see it, if you block off one lamp at a time with something leaning against the car.

 

[Tigger]

The difference I am talking about is in the left section of the left beam.

I have taken your drawings, and added the left extension in green. As you can see (top pic), my beam continues left at the same height as the left 'step up' = your blue line. However, Bricktop1987's left beam seems to drop from the step up you have drawn (bottom pic, green drops from red line) and continues at a lower level, which seems to be the same level as the right beam on the right (your blue line on right).

What do you think is going on here?

Tigger:

Bricktop1987:

 

[mg4mc]

I think they are both the same.

The lamps seem to have a flat baseline, with a kick-up that fades out towards the left.

In your picture the height of the baseline of the RH lamp coincides with the top your LH kicked up section, so it looks like your LH fact, up continues. In fact, I think the LH kick up fades out, but you see the RH lamp baseline continuing. If they were aligned to the same height, you'd see something like Bricktops pattern.

Like I said, block one lamp at a time and you'll see the individual patterns.

 

[Deleted member 14300]

The main beam does seem like a pencil beam. Kinda surprised it's not a wider beam pattern. If I was keeping her, I'd pop spot lamps on it, with led bulbs. Or fit a light bar that comes on with high beam.

 

[mg4mc]

I agree the high beam pattern is not wide enough, much narrower than any other modernish car I have had.

 

[Tigger]

For what it's worth, here is the left hand beam only:

Interesting how much brighter it is pointing straight ahead - almost like high beam.

 

[Bricktop X PWR]

I think they are both the same.

The lamps seem to have a flat baseline, with a kick-up that fades out towards the left.

In your picture the height of the baseline of the RH lamp coincides with the top your LH kicked up section, so it looks like your LH fact, up continues. In fact, I think the LH kick up fades out, but you see the RH lamp baseline continuing. If they were aligned to the same height, you'd see something like Bricktops pattern.

Like I said, block one lamp at a time and you'll see the individual patterns.

I've driven to half distance (12.5ft) so you can clearly see the pattern.

It is shown well by tigger #51

 

[ardsar]

Noticed the marking on the headlight Stating and angle of 1 degree. [ Edit: The marking is 1% so It's actually a factor of 1%. ] So for a distance of 10m the top of the cutoff should be 10cm or 3cm at 3metres.

Which part of the cutoff are you guys using - the high part to the left or the low part. I’ve noticed that as the distance increases, the low point moves further than the high point, hence the question. I’ve seen several youtube videos with differing opinion as to what part of the beam to use.

Also, i can only get about 2 meters away from the wall in my garage, so have been using 2cm drop. Trying to find a large flat surface with a nice wall is difficult!

[ Edit moderator: Note that it's a 1% factor not 1 degree angle. ]

 

[mg4mc]

Are you sure of 10 cm at 10 m, a calculator I used says 17.5 cm.

That is for the flat part of the beam.

You need to set it using a decent distance for any sort of accuracy. The 1 degree is the minimum amount of dip allowed.

Try a car park somewhere. Drive up to a wall and mark with a bit of tape 18 cm below the beam, then reverse back 10 m.

 

[ardsar]

I thought the 1% marked on the top of the headlight was what it should be set to? Hence 10cm for 10m

 

[Coulomb]

I know nothing about headlight adjustment, but tan(1°) = 0.0175.
0.0175 × 10m × 100cm/m = 17.5cm.

Perhaps you were thinking that tan(x) ≅ x for small x, but that only works if x is in radians.
1/360 × 2π = 0.0175.