Do they sell headlight adjusters separate from the headlamp assembly?

[BillHoo]

Local garage flunked my car for headlights.

My headlight adjuster is stripped and something internal is not working either for adjusting the aim up and down.

I went out to the pick and pull and found a headlight assembly where the adjuster was rusted and immobile. I pulled it off to soak in some penetrating oil and the screws were so rusty, the head of one just crumbled off. Was able to get the other one off.

After soaking for a day and chipping off some crud, I was able to get the vertical adjuster to work and the donor headlight now goes up and down properly. But the horizontal adjuster does not move. At 25 feet, the alignment for the driver side headlight is level with the passenger side headlight, but the driver side is aimed about one foot to the right (toward center).

Do you think the tech will ding me again on this? It does not blind oncoming drivers, and seems to illuminate the road pretty well.

Otherwise, I'm considering swapping out the horizontal adjuster from my original headlamp into the donoir assembly. My concern is the two screws for the donor headlamp horizontal adjuster are even more rusted out and an attempt to remove my break off both of them.

If neither horizontal adjuster work and I'm able to get the screws off, I was wondering if they sell headlight adjusters only for 00 Contour SVT headlamp assemblies? Searching online, I see them for sale for other makes and models, but nothing that would fit my headlights.

 

[amc49]

Adjusters pretty much come with headlight assembly or the housing the headlight fits in depending on the design. Thank Ford for that parts unitizing thing that has them taking most smaller parts and packaging them up with much bigger ones you don't need to get them. They prefer not to sell small parts alone any more, not enough money for them.

 

[BillHoo]

I swapped out the horizontal adjuster last night and still have the problem of not being able to move left or right.

Looking down the well of both headlamps, I find that the adjuster arm has a rounded ball end that nestles against a plastic piece that looked like a cross (to allow ventilation I assume). The arm pushes against the plastic pice moving it forward or back to make the adjustment.

On the wells that are not working properly, I find that portions of the plastic piece are broken in there. That also explains why it's such a pain to pull the adjuster out, as it had punched thru the plastic piece either from over extending the adjuster or even just age causing the plastic to get brittle.

To recondition this piece, I'm thinking I may just use some of that Lazer Bond plastic weld that you cure with a UV light (the brand I acutally have is called Bondic). I can goop a little in there and cure it before it drips all over the place. Once it's in there nice and solid, I can try putting in the adjuster.

For now, I just want to pass the inspection at minimal cost. I put in the headlight last night and it looks pretty good at 25 feet. No way an oncoming driver will be blinded, the road is illuminated. Only problem is when I look at the beam pattern against the wall at 25 feet, the driver side is about 10-12 inches to the right of center. Not sure how the testing machine looks at it - by intensity?

 

[gmorrell]

The mechanics (ball and plastic basket) you describe sound like the Asian-made eBay headlamp assemblies I bought a few years ago and finally threw out because they wouldn't hold alignment, the plastic baskets wouldn't stay closed around the metal balls on the alignment studs. Sounds like your Contour may already have aftermarket headlamp assemblies. Good luck repairing the busted plastic, I eventually bought some NIB Ford headlamps from a vendor here, and was amazed at how much better the light pattern was compared to the eBay knockoffs.

Bill, you've become one of the most prolific posters on this board of late, good luck getting your Contour through inspection. They were cheaply built cars to begin with, they're getting up in years, and now they're like high maintenance girl friends wearing a lot of cheap makeup to cover up the wrinkles. ;-)

 

[BillHoo]

I get prolific when I have a lot of problems.

I had not needed to do many changes until now, because I used a different inspections station that would pass the car and tell me what minor adjustments I needed to make on the side. I'd resolve those problems at leisure. That station had closed down for renovations. So I used another station nearby. (I should have suspected something when on the last day of the month, the station did not have lines of people waiting to get their stickers before the month ended. The guy gave me the failure report with lists of items to fix. then he proceeded to add items that did not fail, but he thought I should get fixed! -- writing them down on the inspection report sheet!!)

Now I'm under deadline and have a bunch of things to do within 15 days!

I nearly burned the car down this past winter changing out the fuel pump to resolve a hard start problem. (changed out crank sensor and a few other things). Still hard starting, but but not as bad. I really think it was/is the fuel pump.

Problem was I had the pump nearly empty to install the new one without spilling gas all over the place. After installing the pump, the car started easily. I had just enough gas to get to the gas station and was pulling into a pump when a guy in a big van sends his wife out to block me. His van was on the wrong side of the pump and he was trying to turn around!!!

I got out of line to try and get to another pump, but now they were all in use! I pulled the car over just as it died. I had to use a gatorade bottle to fill up my tank to get it started as the manager had no gas can for me to use. After many cranks, it finally got fuel back in the lines. But by now, I think the pump had already burned out! $50 down the drain because this knucklehead wouldn't let me at the pump. the car had a few days of good starting before it got hard to start again.

As for the fire. I tried cutting an access thru the back seat and nicked the fuel line. A spark then started a fire on top of the tank under the car. Luckily I had a couple jugs of water handy to put it out. I ended up cutting the bad parts of the fuel line and using a brass coupler to connect the two ends of the vinyl hose. I further used Bondic to goop up the joint and cured it with a UV light to harden it. Seems to be holding. No gas smell.

Adventures in old cars!

I originally got this car in 2010 because it was a 00 Bi-Fuel Contour and back then, there were a few natural gas pumps that used the 2500 psi fuel port. Now they all use the 3000 psi pump and are not compatible with my car. So I'm stuck using gas.

 

[amc49]

Very possibly asking for it with that fuel line repair, running 40 psi at least there and that plastic line was never meant to be repaired. Virtually no epoxy, glue, or plastic repair on the planet holds against fuel long term, you could have another fireball there. Hope you got at least hose clamps to sink into the plastic line at fitting, if glue only no way would I even be starting that car up.

 

[BillHoo]

Good point! I'll look for some really small hose clamps. So far it's been holding pretty well for the past few months. Also look into how to access and change out that fuel line.