tips on aiming euros (and a warning that may be obvious to you)

[Benjamin Weste Pearre]

Final word on Euros:

Holy Crap!  I can SEEEE!  I was blind, and now I can seeeeeeeeee!

*ow*

Alright.  Upgrading to Euros was a good idea.  Thanks to all who
helped, but why on earth didn't you come out here and bludgeon me when
I failed to install them 4 years ago when I bought the car ;) I
finally got the high-wattage kit from Blau.

The aiming problems, however, were legitimate - somehow one of the
lights was broken.  The white plastic frame that holds the reflector,
and has 4 balls for the ball and socket joints, was at fault in that
one of the balls had broken off.  I sort of suspect that this is how
it happened: there's an internal protrusion on the bottom of the
housing that seems to be made to prevent the lamp from being aimed too
high?  The lamp had been jarred in shipping (I guess) such that it
popped onto the wrong side of this (not sure how this happened, as the
adjustor should have prevented it, but I don't see what else could
have happened).  So when I screwed the adjustment screw, I was pulling
against this, and instead of the reflector going anywhere, the ball
joint snapped off.

The fix wasn't too hard.  I used something much like dental acrylic
(because of the nice channel in the part that had broken), but I've
since heard cyanoacetate would have been better.  Oh well.  So far the
joint seems good, but I do question its long-term durability given the
heat in there.  If it breaks on the road, I can always tie some string
around the bulb socket and clamp the end with the bulb-change cover.
Does anyone know how hot the inside of the lamp housing gets?  Or
should I just wedge a thermometer in there?

If you're installing Euros, I recommend making sure that the lenses
adjust freely before installing them, and aiming them as soon as
they're mounted (before putting the bumper back on (for some reason I
just stupidly assumed that I had a perfectly-designed piece of
equipment and it would just work)).  And if anyone happens to have a
mostly dead right-side Euro with just the white plastic reflector-
aiming housing intact, I'd like to buy it, just to be sure.

Thanks again to everyone :)

Cheers!
-Ben

--
Ben Pearre          1990 200TQA          http://hebb.mit.edu/~ben