OT SAAB lights

ISTR that there are some SAAB owners in this NG?

I have a 2001 95 and have question about the headlight alignment.

The headlights seem to be aligned to cast as much light as possible into the curb. Thus: N/S lamp points straight and parallel with the N/S body but the O/S lamp is angled towards the curb.

This gives (fairly) good N/S illumination but there is a large area of darkness on front of the O/S. I've had the alignment checked and assured that it is correct but I'm not happy.

By comparison the lights on the RRC (and I have had 3) have had each lamp unit set so the the beams project forward, i.e. the O/S does not angle towards the N/S. This give two distinct upsweeps on dipped beam on the setting wall and main beam has two distinct hot spots coinciding with the centres of each lamp.

I don't now what the SAAB beam pattern looks like on the setting jig but suspect that there is a single upsweep coinciding with the centre of the N/S main beam spot.

Years ago my father handled the advertising for Scania trucks and their brochures made thing about extended N/S illumination.

Any thoughts/suggestions would be appreciated.

Richard

Reply to
Richard
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Mr Woods has a few... ;)

Reply to
Mark Solesbury

Mine are all old though! dont understand these newfangled 9-5 and 9-3 things!

My headlights are shit because they are 30 years old and the silver is starting to wear away! If anybody has a set of US style saab 99 headlamp bowls going spare...

Reply to
Tom Woods

Could they not be re-silvered? Brother had the reflectors on his 'E' plate Audi Coupe Quattro re-silvered quite successfully. Then I found him to almost perfect lamp units from a wrecked Coupe ;-)

Richard

Reply to
Richard

probably could be resilvered but i'd rather spend my pennies on a set of the US style light brackets :) (US cars used a pair of round lights rather than the square euro ones). Ive got a pair of spots to go on too :)

Reply to
Tom Woods

I thought they stopped making them in about 1970!

For MOT purposes, the beam must be between 0 and 2% angled to the N/S, any more than this it will fail.

Reply to
SimonJ

SimonJ wrote: .

Thanks Simon

Is that 0 or 2% measured from where or against what reference?

Richard

Reply to
Richard

Relative to straight ahead - 0% = beam parallel to longditudinal axis of the car, 2% = aimed left by 20mm per metre.

Reply to
EMB

Thanks. That's what I suspected. Sooo, should the (correctly) adjusted lights project two distinct upsweeps (to the left) on dipped beam or not? Having found, and slightly lubbed, the horizontal adjustment I am sorely tempted to do a bit of twiddling to adjust the O/S dipped beam to within that range. As dipped and mainbeam elements are in a single assembly should I adjust to bring the mainbeam hotspot to bang on 0 deg?

Richard

Reply to
Richard

Yes - but to be safe I'd aim for 0.5% or so leftwards.

Reply to
EMB

On or around Sun, 16 Sep 2007 23:04:47 +1200, EMB enlightened us thusly:

most headlamps do this bit automatically if you have the main beams straight ahead and parallel to the road.

Unless, of course, you've faffed around with it and fitted non-standard lamp units.

The RVLR mentions vertical alignment, but not horizontal (left-right); AFAIK the left-right is normally straight ahead on main beam, then the lamps are arranged to dip left (or right) depending on where they're intended to be used. There are a few around that just dip straight down and don't have the dogleg thing, as fitted as OE on the 101, for example.

RVLR (1989) schedule 4 (excerpt):

PART I REQUIREMENTS RELATING TO OBLIGATORY DIPPEDBEAM HEAD-LAMPS AND TO OPTIONAL DIPPEDBEAM HEADLAMPS TO THE EXTENT SPECIFIED IN PART II

  1. Alignment

When a vehicle is at its kerbside weight and has a weight of 75 kg on the driver?s seat, and any manual headlamp levelling device control is set to the stop position, the alignment of every dipped beam headlamp shall, as near as practicable, be as follows:

(a) In the case of a vehicle having a maximum speed exceeding 25mph :

(i) If the dipped beam headlamp bears an approval mark its aim shall be set so that the horizontal part of the cutoff of the beam pattern is inclined downwards as indicated by the vehicle manufacturer in a marking on the vehicle, as mentioned in subparagraph 12(b) or, where no such marking is provided :

(A) 1.3 per cent if the height of the centre of the headlamp is not more than 850mm above the ground, or

(B) 2 per cent if the height of the centre of the headlamp is more than 850mm above the ground;

(ii) If the dippedbeam headlamp does not bear an approval mark and the headlamp can also be used as a mainbeam headlamp its aim shall be set so that the centre of the mainbeam pattern is horizontal or inclined slightly below the horizontal;

(iii) If the dippedbeam headlamp does not bear an approval mark and the headlamp cannot also be used as a mainbeam headlamp its aim shall be set so as not to cause undue dazzle or discomfort to other persons using the road;

Reply to
Austin Shackles

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