Okay, when I have the HEADLIGHTS on I have noticed that my driverside light has this slight shake/gittery issue. It causes it to shimmy just a little. It is not bad, just annoying and was curious if there is something that may need adjusting/tightened? I looked at it and I can't find anything that maybe causing this, so I figured I would ask here and see if anyone has experienced this before and what was done ot correct the problem.

Thanks,

Micah

 

Moderators...could you correct the subject line by replacing "will" with "while"? Thank you.

 

Micah,

Are you using stock headlights or HID's?

Do you know if the entire headlight unit is moving or just the bulb?

Get back to us

 

It is definitely the headlight assembly. It is just a slight shimmy and it is not occurring while driving on smooth surfaces, just the rough areas...which is practically everywhere here in Hawaii!

Appreciate the help,

Micah

 

I'm having the same issue with my passenger side headlight... I just installed the ACA HID Headlight housing assemblies, and the driver-side is fine, but the passenger side is jittery when i hit any kind of bump in the road...

The passenger headlight housing i installed seems to be a bit loose... Not sure how to tighten this up.. the drivers side doesn't do it at all.

 

Have the ACA lights in mine as well. Drivers side is the one that is jittery over rough roads. Passenger side is fine. Been meaning to take it apart and find out what is loose.

 

pull the door panel and tighten the mounting plate for the headlight assembly. i had the exact same problem on the drivers side and mine was missing a screw on the mounting plate.

 

When the headlight opens,there are stops that limit it's travel(under the hood,directly behind the light assembly).
There should be some rubber or hard plastic "bumpers" over the metal stops.
If one or both of these are missing,it could be causing the "jiggle"
Just get a piece of 5/16 or 3/8 fuel or vacuum line,cut a couple of 1/2" long pieces,and slip them over the stops,this should tighten things up.
Also,a bulb that's not seated into the reflector assy. correctly will jiggle when you hit a bump-

 

When you say pull the door panel, are you referring to the car's actual passenger door panel? How is there anything related to the headlights in the car door panel??

 

I don't know what he's talking about but he DOES NOT mean the INTERIOR DOOR panel

 

Thanks, I'll check these ideas out on mine.

 

LOL I figured..

 

Thanks, I will check this out as well.

 

Try tightening the torx bolt and nut that the headlight hinges on, just be careful the factory uses a threadlock on these and they are pain. You will have to remove the cover to see them, Either that or the actuator brackets which the motor swivels to open the lights is a little loose. HID's with cutoff lenses only make this more apparent.

 

The ACA headlights add a whole nother dimension to the shaky light problem. With them it is sometimes that the bulbs have movement in the sockets themselves and adding rubber pads to the back of them and then tightning the bulb cover helps alleviate this.

 

Not the case here though. Checked to make sure the lights were in snug before mounting them. I can see the whole assembly shake while driving. The passenger side is solid. So something is loose in there. With the lights up I can shake the assembly side to side. Can't do that hardly at all on the passenger side unless I force it some. Over real bumpy roads I am expecting the thing to just fly off. Lots of vibration. So it needs to come apart. But I will look at the bump stops as mentioned above as well as the tightening of hinges as you shown above.

Thanks

 

The "stops" you refer to are called "INSULATOR-HDLP LVLG ACTR" by GM and are made of a hard white plastic (nylon?), NOT rubber. These limit-stops are oval in shape and press onto the metals tabs. Over time, they become deformed and "mush" (technical term ) out a bit and cause extra clearance or they may break/fall off. Not sure if GM stills sells them or not. For a very long time, they were not available as a separate item. Interestingly, when you receive it/them, the package says "flexible boot". This is apparently what happens when you allow college interns to name parts.



part # 16524060

Headlight "shake" or "jiggle" on a car that has had HID conversions is NOT necessarily related to these "insulator/flexible boots", although the car may be experiencing BOTH problems at once. The ACA "headlight jiggle/wiggle" has been discussed many times in the past here and relates to the actual movement/loose fit of the HID bulb itself in it's mounting fixture.

Note: Do not use rubber tubing or some other soft, flexible material if you are going to do a homebrew repair. Although it may be better than nothing, the flexibility of the rubber may still allow movement. I would try to use plastic tubing of the appropriate size if possible and glue it or epoxy it on the metal tab.

 

In your case, you may want to check the pivot pin upon which the headlight assembly rotates when opening/closing. It is silver colored, about 1/2" - 5/8" in diameter and approx 3" long and is positioned in a horizontal manner in the mechanism. It originally uses a flat metal "push-on" type washer over the end of it to keep it from working loose or falling out. A better fix would be to drill a small hole near the end of the pin and use a washer and cotter pin to hold it in place.

HTH

 

Thanks, I will check that out when I take it apart.

Greg

 

In my case, the HID Bulb felt pretty secure in the housing. I'll have to go double check to make sure everything is tight and see what I can find... Also going to check out the insulator flex boots/limit stops. Hopefully I can find the problem... this is so annoying...