dip for Europe

M

mabo

Club Member
Nov 13, 2011
5,365
5,007
south wales
I hear that there's a lever on the back of the headlamps to avoid dip beam dazzling our continental cousins.
There's no mention of it in the owners manual, had one of the units out today and cant see any lever, just the 2 spanner knobs for permanent alignment, does this lever exist ? is so where is the little blighter?:(
 
You have to take the cover off as you would if you wanted to change a bulb. The lever will be pointing toward you under the dipped beam bulb holder. It's nothing special just a bit of tin about 7.5mm wide and 50mm long.
 
OK, Thanks Quicksilver, I did see that, didn't think that could be the lever I was looking for, it looked to fragile.
So, sorry to continue to pester for inf but which way do I move it?
 
D1CKL said:
The opposite way to what it is now.
Click to expand...
Ah you say that, and please all feel free to take the urine, but you're assuming that it isn't already set up for driving in Europe.
I guess I'm gonna have to point the lights at a wall and see what happens. That should entertain my neighbours....
 
Just to clarify; the lever doesn't alter the dipping angle of the lights all it does is raise a mask over part of the lamp, blocking the part of the beam that would cause problems for oncoming traffic whilst driving on the continent.
 
D1CKL said:
I thought it just rotated the reflector slightly to aim the beam in the opposite direction.
Click to expand...

It would presumably have to do something like that as not only do the lights have to 'dip' to the other side, but the cut-off at the top of the beam has to be on the other side...rotating the reflectors should accomplish that.

I'm quite interested to see how this works out - I'll be doing it myself when I can find a decent wall 25' away with level clear ground (not as easy around here as you might think).
My old Cougar had some Canadian lights fitted for when I first moved to Germany six years ago, which have different bulb sockets which have different bayonet fittings, so not only do you need US bulbs, but you have to cut and re-wire the bulb-holders into the car's wiring loom. And there's no electric levelling - I wondered why they weighed half as much as the ones I was taking off...
I was advised back then that the UK lights couldn't be corrected for continental driving... since new lights are about 1,200-€ and even used ones are around 300,-€ on ebay.de, those cheap Canuck ones were the best deal at the time.

It seemed odd at the time in that that there didn't seem to be a specific part no. for 'continental' lights as opposed to UK-spec lights. The Muppets at Inchcape Ford in Farnborough said it wasn't possible to adjust them, so I assumed they were right...
 
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