Brighten up the road

For some time I've had replacement headlights for my 1992 Ford F250 waiting to be installed. These are DOT-listed and apparently OE-spec, and they are identical in most respects save that one of the adjusters is a 6mm hex stud where it was originally a philips screw. The original headlights were both badly clouded, and one had broken glass inside of it. This may be the prelude to a HID upgrade, but first I'll have to see what the lights look like with the new, unclouded plastic lenses.

Replacing the headlights is a bit of a pain. After popping the hood, remove the batteries, then the battery trays (8 & 10mm.) One of them is integrated into the coolant/windshield bottle holder, or vice versa, and that stuff will have to come out as well. Pull the philips screws out of the headlight bezels ("doors") and two nuts from the back of each, with a stubby ratchet, 3" extension, and deep socket; I had one nut out of four, 11mm, and on the way back in replaced them with nylon lock nuts, 10mm.

Now comes the fun part. The headlights are held into the plastic bracket with small stamped sheet-metal clips. These clips are designed for easy installation and they are a bear to remove gracefully. There are three; the upper outer I removed by breaking off a tab of plastic so that I could pry from below, and the lower outer I drilled a hole through the side of the support so that I could pry from the side. The remaining clip could be pried off without making any modifications. I did all this with a medium-sized standard screwdriver and occasional judicious application of a very large one.

Installation, as you might imagine, occurs in the reverse order. I'm not sure how to aim the headlights correctly, so I intend to acquire a 6mm nut driver which I can carry with me, and I'll aim them by the repeated, manual method. At a shop a machine is used, but generally speaking you measure the distance from the ground to the lens centerline, then adjust the lamps so that the brightest part stops at that height. My problem lies in finding ground which runs flat to an appropriate wall. If I get a chance perhaps I will provide the official procedure.

For a bonus I fired up the compressor and used the cut-off wheel to remove the rusty old spare holder. It seems like if I replace the hardware (threaded rod is available at most hardware stores) that the spare may actually fit even though it's at least two inches larger in diameter than the original. I'm going to need a good three inches of extension, though.