I need some help. Im trying to fix my head light on my Vauxhall Nova(Dont laugh - First car) My main problem is that the dip on the headlight is wrong. The car is ment to have electric motors that does it, Only on the drivers side the cogs have warn away. All that its doing is just grinding and grinding away.

I have to fix this for the MOT as it wont pass like it is? I also cant seem to get it to move manually. Any help would be great please.

The dip is "wrong"? what exactly is wrong with it?.

The electric motors on headlights are only there to adjust the lights when you have heavy loads in the back, so you don't dazzle other drivers, so in normal driving, they have no use.

The failing of the headlight adjuster motor would not be a MOT failure in itself, the failure would be if the headlights are out of alignment, and then the MOT station would be able to fix it in about 5 mins.

Same as dan said, i dont think this would be an MOT failure. To make sure, why not go and see the MOT tester and ask him whether it is or not?

P.S, to fix it, could you not just go to a scrap yard, find a nova and nick the cogs from that?

Whats happend is the nearside light is normal, The offside light is really low. basically - the notch for the lights is as follows,

Nearside - 1
Offside - 4

So they ARE out of alignment and i need to fix it somehow.

Quote from mcgas001 :

Whats happend is the nearside light is normal, The offside light is really low. basically - the notch for the lights is as follows,

Nearside - 1
Offside - 4

So they ARE out of alignment and i need to fix it somehow.

oh, i thought that when you went to change the alignment yourself, neither moved.

Have you tryed just manually alligning them yourself for now? Or is it everytime you try to adjust the one, it falls to the bottom?

Only thing i could suggest is get a replacement headlight of the same spec to your car, but that depends whether you wanna spend time looking for the "cogs" and save a little money, or go straight to a yard and pick a whole headlight up from there.

Nah, I think i can do it manually but im not sure, as the grips to move it seem to have gone from the motor. After looking in the haynes manual it seems i have to remove the whole light to remove the motor that changes it. The cogs are non-accessable so ill just get a new motor if thats needed. Im thinking something is wrong though. The whole light cage and indicator seem to move with a lot of play, Either rust has killed the brackets or theres a bolt lose somewhere. Im gonna try and strip the light and indicator out. I wanna get to the bottom of this....

Don't fuss or fret with it, its much more effort than it's worth, the MOT station will sort it out, normally FOC, because it only takes them a matter of minutes.

Quote from danowat :

Don't fuss or fret with it, its much more effort than it's worth, the MOT station will sort it out, normally FOC, because it only takes them a matter of minutes.

Thats my main worry really, I cant afford for it to fail tbh... ill just have to hope.

Well, if that is the only problem, they will rather just fix it there, or give you an advisory. They will only fail if there is a long list of things wrong with it, so either way, it won't matter ever so much. With most places if it fails and you return for the retest with X amount of days, they will retest free of charge.

Your pride and joy is an old car, hats off to you if it passes first time.

About from the headlight, is there anything else that it will fail on that you know of.

Quote from The General Lee :

Your pride and joy is an old car, hats off to you if it passes first time.

About from the headlight, is there anything else that it will fail on that you know of.

I cant think of anything tbh, Its a Very clean shell apart from a minor bit of rust under the bonet near the nearside light. Im amazed how cheap i got it and how clean it is. 3 owners from new, 89,000 miles on the clock. Not bad for a 17 year old car...