Headlight Adjuster HELP

Daniel644

Original poster
Member
Feb 27, 2015
573
I bought some new headlights for my 03 Trailblazer and the vertical adjuster on the Driver headlight doesn't do anything and to get it replaced I have to send both headlights back (which means taking the other one back off the truck, swapping my HIR bulbs back into the stock lights and reinstalling them, get refunded then buy another set, alternatively they are willing to offer a partial refund if I want to keep them as is and try to fix it myself.

I've examined the headlight and I believe the issue is the white plastic piece the adjuster screw threads into is stripped out, is there are way to fix that? I was spit balling an idea of cutting off the section of housing (see photo) that holds the adjuster screw shortening it and reattaching it with some epoxy, my idea to to allow the screw to go deeper into the white plastic piece to a section that isn't striped out, thoughts?
 

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Blckshdw

Moderator
Nov 20, 2011
10,665
Tampa Bay Area, FL
That plastic nut on the back of the headlight can get stripped out, so it spins mostly freely, and the screw inside stays still. That happened to me, but it was during a retrofit, so I had the assembly open and was able to remove the screw and plastic nut to tinker with it. The part that's inside the nut isn't threaded, more like spiked. (at least the aftermarket set I had was like that) If you can get them separated, you could apply some epoxy to the screw, press the nut back on, and it should be good to go.
 

Mounce

Member
Mar 29, 2014
13,667
Tuscaloosa, AL
Send it back as defective and try a new set. What I would do at least... You paid for a working set, get one. Not a Jerry rigged set.
 

Daniel644

Original poster
Member
Feb 27, 2015
573
Send it back as defective and try a new set. What I would do at least... You paid for a working set, get one. Not a Jerry rigged set.
yeah but I bought them with a 20% off code on ebay so if I return them and rebuy them it's gonna cost me that much more and if the new ones have a problem i'm just gonna be pissed and end up destroying them, i'd rather get a bigger discount and find a way to make it work or just not fuck with it at all and just get my money back and go back to the stock lights and just clean them up best I can.

That plastic nut on the back of the headlight can get stripped out, so it spins mostly freely, and the screw inside stays still. That happened to me, but it was during a retrofit, so I had the assembly open and was able to remove the screw and plastic nut to tinker with it. The part that's inside the nut isn't threaded, more like spiked. (at least the aftermarket set I had was like that) If you can get them separated, you could apply some epoxy to the screw, press the nut back on, and it should be good to go.

do you have pictures of this? I found 2 of your old pictures where you had the screw in like a piece of MDF and then a picture of the housing with the lense and reflector removed while you where prepping the retrofit, i'm just trying to fully grasp how exactly the mechanism works.
 

Blckshdw

Moderator
Nov 20, 2011
10,665
Tampa Bay Area, FL
do you have pictures of this? I found 2 of your old pictures where you had the screw in like a piece of MDF and then a picture of the housing with the lense and reflector removed while you where prepping the retrofit, i'm just trying to fully grasp how exactly the mechanism works.

Those were the only pics I took when I was fixing that, good find by you though. :thumbsup: In the pic with the screw in the board, the section that is above the board, is passed through the back of the headlight housing, from inside out. The black gear is pressed in place, and those spikes hold it there by friction. The rubber spacer holds against the inside of the housing, to prevent the screw from sliding out.

I removed the gear by prying it off with the claw hammer. Just had to overcome the friction of those spiked teeth.

:undecided: I'm re-reading your original post... If it's the ball joint assembly you think is stripped, I don't know how you'd fix that. The hole is threaded all the way through, so in theory if you raised the reflector bowl and aimed it as high as it could go, the screw could poke out the front of the white plastic slider. Shortening the screw would reduce the amount you could lower the aim, and not really address the slider being stripped out. So I guess the first things first, determine what exactly is stripped.

Does the reflector bowl move when you push it with a finger through the bulb opening, or tilt it around?
 

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Daniel644

Original poster
Member
Feb 27, 2015
573
@Blckshdw all the pivot point ball and socket points are fine, it's the BIG white piece that slides back and forward when you turn the adjuster screw that isn't moving at all. You can just see the white piece through the opening in the photo I posted above, it's the part that actually moves when you turn the adjuster screw, it doesn't move. the reflector bowl is in the fully down position, the white piece doesn't move no matter what I do, I can sit there trying to force it backward into the "adjuster tower" as I spin the screw and nothing, just some white plastic shavings end up falling on the back of the reflector bowl.

is this part something that could be replaced if the headlight is opened up to do a retrofit?
 

Blckshdw

Moderator
Nov 20, 2011
10,665
Tampa Bay Area, FL
is this part something that could be replaced if the headlight is opened up to do a retrofit?

Yeah, that part can be scavenged from a junk yard set of lights if you can track one down. I believe they are side specific...
 

Daniel644

Original poster
Member
Feb 27, 2015
573
well, finally have an update on this, I used a Dremel with a Cutoff Wheel and cut the "adjuster tower" (where the red line halfway up the tower is in the original post) off the back of the headlight in question, sure enough the adjuster screw was not holding in the nylon part AT ALL, looks like a defect from the factory on the nylon part, even when I had the headlight where I could hold the white nylon piece all the way up into the "tower" the screw would NEVER thread in (like I had a solid Inch of gap between the headlight and the piece of the tower the screw is attached to when teh white part was pulled all the up and the screw "run in"), I grabbed a drill bit just slightly smaller then the threads of the adjuster screw and ran it down through the nylon and after doing that I was able to thread the adjuster screw in, then I epoxied the "tower" back on and can now adjust that headlight.

After all that these headlights SUCK, the light scatter is insane, they look like the factory bucket design when compared side by side but the beam spread is completely different and effectively worthless, like take the absolute worst headlight scatter you've ever seen from someone sticking HID's into halogen reflector housings and multiply it by 10, thats how bad the scatter is, guess it's time to plan to pop the covers off and do a retrofit of both low and high beam to projectors on those housings, will probably just sit on them for a while while I debate getting an SS and ditching the 4.2
 
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