Fixed my horribly aimed headlights!
Why do people drive with headlights aimed into the dirt? A recent study showed that not one in ten cars got graded better than a B- for headlight aim!
Anyhow the adjusters on the headlights weren't helping and I got a hint from a guy in Alaska that shortened the regulating rod I think on the front of his E70 to get the adaptive lights to aim higher.
Cut off about 14 mm
Took the ball joints apart to clean and lube
14mm shorter. I ended up adjusting about 2 mm longer to get the ¹/₄ degree down angle I was aiming for.
Coincidentally, there are two models of regulating rod; 71 and 80 mm. I'm curious if the rod was replaced with the wrong length model as that would have given me the symptoms I was having.
There are different lengths for models with adaptive drive or not. It would be easy to get the wrong length and if you didn't compare the old and new part it would be easy to miss.
Anyhow; happy days my headlights in my new to me e70 now point FORWARD not down into the ground! The cut off from the masking plate was no more than 80' from the front of the car meaning I had a big dark trapezoid where my lights were supposed to be aiming, also now my headlights actually illuminate the road signs!
FYI those regulating rods are a maintenance item; when I ever have the wheel off I pull them out, pull the ball joints apart and spin them in a drill and clean out the sockets and reassemble with a little oil.
Jigging the car to have the right height with the wheel missing was *ahem* challenging for sure.
I hung a piece of rope from the bumper to the ground and lifted the wheel from the ball joint on the bottom of the knuckle until the rope just touched the ground. (I had a jack stand at the lift point in case it was needed).
That got me very close. I fine tuned the jack height until the hub height matched the other front wheel, doing over I would have measured the hub height and used a hub jack stand or such to load the wheel exactly.
Light aim came out perfect. I prob should have left the rod a little short so I could use the adjusters to fine tune them.