When I drive my 2000 XK8 at night the forward visiblilty with normal beam is terrible. High beam is great. But normal beam does not light up far enough down the road to be even safe in my opinion. I live in deer country and I have to use high beam as much as possible. The problem is mostly with the left beam. The top is cut off on both beams. And the left beam top is cut off lower than the right. But both need to be raised so I can see down the road further. Can someone tell me how to adjust these beams. Or, any other suggestions would be appreciated also.

EZDriver 2000 XK8 1995 XJ6

 

The None HID headlights are well known as being useless. Upgrade to HID, I have aftermarket units which cost me £60 on ebay and the difference is well worth it.

 

That's what I did too, the after market HID is well worth it. If you were in US, try www.ddmtuning.com. They have the H1 slim HID for about $45.

 

or drop some Silvania Silverstar halogen bulbs in there, I heard they are much better than the old halogens, which do dim over time quite a bit. But, for $10 more, you can go HID and get soooo much more benefit. If you can replace a bulb and snap together some wiring, you can do the aftermarket kit...get 4300k (or as close as possible to it) for the most light output.

 

I agree that the light intensity is not the greatest but I don't want to totally blind the oncoming driver. But the real problem is there seems to be a shade or something that cuts off the upper part of the beam with streight edge. More on the left than the right. Just raising that would help a lot. Is there a way to do that?

 

Yes, you can adjust it individually up more, but it is supposed to be a little higher on the right than the left. The cutoff you refer to as a shade, is part of a projector housing's design, it allows a more powerful light source w/o creating the stray light above the level that is needed to see the road ahead, and a little off to the right and higher for taller signs. A 'reflector' housing produces major glare problems when using anything more advanced than typical halogen bulbs.

You're not the first to complain about the low aiming among older XK owners, I suppose, with age, since your car does not have autoadjusting headlights...always perfectly level... weakening front end springs and/or mounts can lower the front end and dip those beams a bit lower than the driver would like. I don't need to adjust mine, so no first hand knowledge on 'how to', but the manual should be able to show you which screw does what on that housing.

 

I really don't mean to sound dumb, but I'm going to. What is the difference between a projector housing and a reflector housing? And what is the difference between Halogen and HID?

There, now see how dumb I am.

EZDriver

 

Projectors are like a big magnifying glass in front of the bulb, reflectors are like a mirror behind the bulb.

HID is high intensity discharge - many more lumens than halogen bulb.
Halogen is conventional yellow bulb found in most cars.

I would also suggest an HID kit from ddmtuning... and you can focus the light away from oncoming traffic so there's no blinding going on.

 

Adding to the chorus singing the praises of HID. Get them. There are a couple of good threads on how to adjust. Search <adjust headlight> in this forum.