December 29, 2018 – Headlight Vertical Angle Actuator Repair

Much like the turning high beam lights are actuated with hydraulic lines, the angle of the headlight buckets is changed hydraulically to preclude the lights pointing to low or high as the suspension moves up and down.  For example, if the front suspension is compressed or the rear suspension is extended resulting in a nose-down attitude of the car – the headlights are pushed to point upward.

Here is a cool schematic showing how the vertical control system works:

At some point in the past, the plastic tee fitting that joins the front feed line to the rear feed line and the headlight bucket actuator was broken (you can see the intersection of the rear and front lines where the tee fitting goes in the picture above just above the front wheel arch).

This picture shows a new black tee in the lines just below the right front suspension sphere:

Next obstacle was to refill the lines which I did once again by introducing a Luer petcock at the location of the old brass filling plug on the headlight actuator.  With that in place, it was a snap to pump fluid into the lines with a syringe, reverse (suck) air out the 3rd port on the petcock and get the system working.  I did this with the rear suspension fully extended and the front compressed (using a floor jack).  With the suspension setup like this, I made sure the actuator was fully (and firmly) extended (as if pushing the headlight angle up).  On releasing the front suspension, the actuator is easily compressed (as if pulling the headlight angle back down)- exactly what it should do.

Here are a couple of shots of the final setup with the Luer petcock in place for any future refilling needs.