Droopy Headlight - The Right Way to Fix It

[Cubist]

As reported in my introduction to the forum I recently found that Black Bess’ headlights were suffering the Jaguar droop problem and that some urgent attention was needed if I were to continue driving safely at night. As many will know this is not an uncommon problem with the models that have the self-levelling function, although it can also, but rarely, afflict those without this feature. Given that the headlights are sealed units I had a quick look around the net to see what I might have to pay for new replacements. This produced a sharp intake of breath that re-acquainted my chest and spine – from SNG Barratt, standard halogen £320 per side and for Xenon a mind blowing £900. Naturally Black Bess was/is equipped with the Xenon option!

After taking a long step back I then decided to look around for less expensive options and while considering second hand offerings on eBay I checked out YouTube and other sources for examples of how others had remedied the droop problem. First among these was Brutal’s solution of drilling a hole in the headlight and using a bolt to adjust the headlight reflector back to level. Being something of a perfectionist, bordering on the puritanical some would say, I was reluctant to pursue this approach if possible and checking further I came across the video, produced by the JAG TV father and son team, in which the job I needed done was showcased. Excellent; a fairly thorough demonstration of what needed to be done, how to do it, what kit I would need and confirmation that I would not need any specialist equipment to do the job myself. Also, no need to apply Brutal’s brutal approach.

Check out these links if you want to see what is involved: -

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LZ6-HY4BM_U&t=14s
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=onybvwWGLdk&t=35s
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7Hbv4BovDVA

Now Black Bess is getting on for 16 years old, and in my opinion the Xenon headlight bulbs were not performing as well as I would like, there are differing opinions regarding whether the performance of Xenon bulbs decay over time, but as I needed to remove the headlight assembly anyway I decided to upgrade the bulbs at the same time. So, my initial shopping list looked like this: -

1. Headlight Adjuster Repair Kit - £25.00 from Car Lami via eBay.
a. Note the kits for standard Halogen and Xenon headlights are different so you have to make sure you buy the right set for your car.
2. Uprated D2S Osram Night Breaker Xenarc bulbs - £100 incl P&P (ouch!)
3. Butyl Panel / Headlight Sealant Tape - £13.00.
a. Some say this is not really necessary as there may be sufficient old butyl left in the headlight joint after the halves have been separated – I was not prepared to gamble given the delivery lead times.
b. Take care when buying the Butyl tape to avoid outfits based in China – delivery lead times are phenomenal so better to find a UK supplier.

Ultimately, I had to add a few more items to the list but I have itemised these in the text after below my signature - as I cannot for some reason add a document attachment. In this I have also discussed the pitfalls and problems I came across and have also offered some tips about how to overcome these.

Overall I spent about £150 to do the job and, barring the problems I encountered, it should have taken just a day and half of my time to complete the work. The work aside, saving the thick end of two grand was very satisfying.

I hope this is of help to some of you irrespective of what model you drive.

Cheers,
Cubist

S Type 3.0SE X201.5 Droopy Headlight Fix
A. Jack up the vehicle, support with axle stands and remove the front wheels.
a. Make sure to leave enough room to the front of the car to get the splash guards out.
B. Remove the front splash guard – from directly behind the bumper and underneath the radiator.
a. This is secured with a series of Torx head six mm bolts that fit to Castellated Speed Fasteners to the front bumper, both wheel arches and the Belly Pan under the engine – 10 mm hex head 6mm bolts may also have been used to connect the front splash guard and the Belly Pan. There are also a couple of small self-tapping screws that fasten the leading edge of the Belly Pan to the under-frame (don’t lose these). Strictly speaking it’s not necessary to remove these self-tappers for this job but I was trying to find some extra access to solve a problem discussed later.
C. According to the book the next step is to remove the plastic shrouds from the wheel arches.
a. Full removal is not necessary as you only need access to the bolts securing the bumper to the frame so you can get away with simply removing the torx bolts and the plastic screw-plug that secures the forward half of the shroud to give yourself enough room to get a socket wrench inside.
D. With B & C complete, the front splash guard can be removed from underneath the car, if it has not fallen out all by itself. If not, a little horizontal pressure toward the rear of the car should be sufficient to get it out.
E. Next disconnect the Fog Lights power supply socket from the Fog Light wiring loom on the near side of the vehicle and ease off the clips that hold the Fog Light wiring loom to the frame – there’s no need to disconnect the loom from the fog light sockets.
F. Then remove the plastic cowl that covers the headlight assemblies and radiator in the engine bay.
G. If your car has headlamp washers gently lever off the covers taking care to protect the paint.
a. There is a reasonable chance the plastic cruciform on which the washer cover is mounted will break. Metal ones are available and easy to install.
H. Now you can remove the front bumper and grill. To do this remove the 10mm stainless steel bolts that secure the bumper and grill to the frame at the front of the car and each of the single bolts that secure the bumper under each wheel arch (some models may have two here) and then ease the bumper locating peg out of the frame by pushing the bumper gently to the side and away from the car.
a. If your car has headlamp washers pull each washer assembly forward and remove the plastic shield that sits behind each of them.
b. The whole bumper assembly is very light and can easily be managed by one person. Get hold of it at the top and pull gently toward you and down – before doing this put some sheets of cardboard or heavy fabric on the ground to prevent the risk of damaging the paint.

All sounds simple so far and in theory it would have taken an hour or two at worst to get to this point. NAH!

The critical complication the process does not consider is rust. Many of the bolts and/or their associated speed fasteners used for the body panels are exposed to the elements and in some instances the speed fasteners are located in places where water and dirt deposits can build up to encourage corrosion. As a consequence, it’s almost certain, with older vehicles, that the castellated (nut) section of the speed fastener will rust to the bolt and when you try to turn the head the castellated nut section will part company from the body of the speed fastener and simply rotate in the hole. Even if there were access so that you could get a grip on the speed fastener nut you would be unlikely to get it out without damaging one or both of the panels it joins. You cannot drill them out because the bolt will simply spin on the end of the drill. Access to use a hacksaw blade is also impossible in some instances but can be reasonably effective if time consuming and awkward in some locations. Oscillating multi tools with metal cutting blades should not be used in any circumstances – the resulting chatter and heat build-up will cause the body of the bolt to cut through the mounting hole in the plastic and if this opens out to the leading edge of the upper/inner panel it may not be possible to get a tight and effective fit when you come to put everything back together. Where I could not use a hacksaw blade I finally resorted to a small angle-grinder but was careful to take a small amount of metal from the head of the bolt, and where I could, stroking toward the inner receiving panel, stopping frequently to let the bolt cool down. When you’ve ground away the head of the bolt, to the washer if one is fitted, you should then be able to persuade the lower/outer panel away from the receiving panel with no detrimental damage. I did consider using a Dremel tool for this job but did not have a suitable metal cutting or grinding head that would do the job.

Another thing to be aware of while removing the front splash shield and wheel arch guards is that there is a plastic mount, which houses a speed fastener, that fits over a seam on the inner surface of the bumper just ahead of the wheel. This plastic mount can become detached from the bumper while removing the head of the bolt if the drastic measures I’ve discussed above are necessary. The mount simply pushes into place on the bumper seam but, inside the recess of the mount there should be at least one toothed metal clip that is designed to get a strong hold on the bumpers plastic seam, you need to be careful to make sure this is not overlooked or lost when removing or re-fitting the bumper or your S Type will acquire a new set of wings of the flapping variety.

Having cut off so many bolt heads and got the body panels off and placed safely aside you next need to order some new bolts and speed fasteners. Here’s a link to the products I bought for the job and also for the bolts I needed that came with circa 20mm washers that are needed in some instances.

https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/10x-Jaguar-S ... 2749.l2649
https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/5x-Black-Met ... 2749.l2649

It’s worth mentioning that these guys supply a wide variety of fasteners to the auto market and many of their products are interchangeable between car makes. Also, their delivery performance is excellent, everything I ordered arrived within 48 hours and some within 24. They also supplied me with some of the plastic rivets and fasteners I needed for elsewhere around Black Bess.

Back to the process.
I. The headlight assemblies are held in place with 4 10mm bolts under the front of each headlight and a fifth that can be found behind the headlight and between the headlight body and the Ballast Pack if fitted. You’ll need a 30cm socket extension bar to reach these and, if your sockets are not magnetic, it’s a good idea to have a small but strong magnet taped to the head of a long screwdriver (or better still a magnetic probe or screwdriver) to retrieve the bolt.
J. Once the bolts are out of the way the headlight assembly can be eased forward and away from its seating to allow access to the wiring loom connector. Push the red button toward the rear of the connector to release the lock and separate the two parts of the connector. The headlight assembly can then be lifted away from the car but be careful not to force it or to damage the paint work.
K. Strip and Re-build the headlight assemblies.
a. First a note of caution. Some believe that there is a risk of severe electric shock from HID headlights. However, simple measures can totally avoid this risk. First make sure the headlights have not been switched on for at least ten minutes; this allows dissipation of any stored charge in the Ballast/Igniter. Wear suitable insulated gloves during the strip down and re-build stages.
b. Gently remove the rubber weather shroud from the headlight body – be careful so as not to tear it.
c. Next remove the High Beam (Halogen) bulb and its holder and rubber shroud, the side light and indicator bulbs and holders. Remove the bulbs from these holders and place aside taking care not to touch the glass with bare skin or dirty gloves.
d. Remove the external Ballast Pack. This is held in place with three small screws and its electrical connection is made through a weatherproof connector that is integrated with the headlight body. Ease the pack away from the body and set aside.
e. Remove the Dipped Beam (Xenon) headlight cover by simply rotating it to the left. Behind this you will find the second element of the HID system which can be removed by rotating it too to the left about a quarter turn. The wiring connector should pop off by itself when you loosen the pack. If not, remove this from the pack and set the pack aside. N.B. This part of the HID system cannot be re-installed with its wiring connected – during re-build, tape the wire and connector to the headlight body so you don’t have to fish for it later, reinstall the pack after fitting the new bulb and then reconnect the wire.
f. Next remove the self-levelling motor by turning it about a quarter turn to the left. The motor connects via a ball to the internal levelling fittings and to remove it from the headlight assembly you will need to manoeuvre the ball out of the fitting before the motor will fully separate.
g. The headlight wiring loom cannot be easily removed from the headlight body and it is not necessary to do so. Before moving on to the next stage of the process I simply bundled up the wiring loom and wrapped it in foil to protect it from the heat of the oven.
h. To separate the lens from the body of the headlamp it is necessary to heat the whole unit to around 110C for 7 minutes. An electric oven is best for this but a gas oven can be used by getting the temperature to 110C and then switching the flame off.
i. My guess is that Induction and Steam ovens should never be used for this process.
ii. Remove any steel shelves or hanging systems from the oven and use a small piece of hardboard or ply to keep the headlamp away from the ovens floor and you should also try avoid its touching the walls.
iii. I’ve seen an example on You Tube where a Heat Gun is used rather than an oven. These run at very high temperatures and I think you would need to be very careful not to damage the lens or body of the headlight.
i. When the baking is complete remove the headlight from the oven using suitable heat resistant gloves.
j. Depending on how tight a joint was made during manufacture you may need a thin bladed scraper or small electrical screw driver to begin teasing the lens and body apart and progress through larger flat blade screwdrivers as you go - I ended up using a 25mm paint scraper in the end. Keep moving along the seam all the way around the lamp gradually widening the gap as uniformly as possible and making sure the lock tabs are clear as you progress until you can gently pull the two halves apart.
i. If the butyl cools before you’ve finished don’t worry a few more minutes in the oven is all that’s needed to loosen it up again.
k. Once you’ve separated the two halves make sure to clean off any stray strands of butyl that have stuck to the surface of the lens or elsewhere. This can be done by gathering a small ball of the old butyl between your fingers and dabbing at the offending spots while the butyl is still warm.
l. With that done you can then move on to remove the reflector from the headlamp body. In a healthy headlamp, the reflector is mounted on two ball gimbal sockets on the back of the reflector – if your headlamp is suffering the droop problem one of these is broken and the reflector is already free on one side. To remove the reflector, I gave the still attached gimbal and socket a squirt of DW40 to ease things along and then got hold behind the reflector with my fingers as near to each gimbal socket in turn and pulled firmly forward.
i. In all likelihood, the ‘ball’ will break off any surviving gimbal at this point.
ii. Although only one of my headlights was drooping I decided to do both to avoid the obvious risk.
m. The remains of the ball in the socket must be removed without damaging the sockets – replacement sockets are not supplied with the kit. The best way to get these out is with a small diameter drill, 2mm or thereabouts will do the job, and a pair of snipe nose pliers. Being careful to keep the drill bit away from the socket drill a hole or two through the ball to break it up.
n. With the reflector out of the way, you can now remove and replace the various components of the levelling mechanism i.e. the new gimbals which fit to the headlight body and the receiver for the motor body gimbal-socket which is fitted to the rear of the reflector.
i. The kit I bought also included the adjuster gearwheels and pinions that control movement of the manual adjustment screws but I did not need to use these.
o. The next step is remove or more evenly distribute any left-over butyl in the channel of the headlamp body and lens. I chose to remove as much as I could and then inserted a new strand, stretched to around 5-7mm diameter. Alternatively, I suppose I could have just added a little of the new stuff where the old looked a little thin.
p. To refit the reflector offer it up with the sockets aligned to the gimbals and press firmly against each one until it snaps home.
q. Having previously cleaned the body and lens you might want to check that there are no smudges or fingerprints, whatever, on the internal faces of the lens and reflector. I used a little methylated spirit for this on the lens but was careful to polish the interior afterwards. Meths will also remove any smudges from the surface of the reflector but you need to be careful as the silver coating is very thin and is easily removed or damaged.
r. Once you’re satisfied that all the bits are firmly fitted and everything is clean get the oven on and up to 110C. Fit the lens to the body and press gently into place – complete closure of the joint is unlikely at this stage so don’t try to force it - before putting the lamp into the oven. After 7 minutes the butyl will have become mobile again and you can then begin pressing the two parts more firmly together. Be sure to do this progressively around the perimeter of the lamp until the plastic lugs are fully engaged.
s. If the butyl hardens before you achieve this last stage just put the lamp back in the oven for a few more minutes.
t. Any butyl that escapes around the exterior of the lamp can be removed as described at k above.
u. Re-install or replace the various bulbs in their holders, and install the Self Levelling Motor and Ballast Pack, the breather hose and ensure the lamp wiring loom is properly located.
i. When re-fitting the Self Levelling Motor make sure that its gimbal ball is properly located in the slide gimbal-socket on the back of the reflector.
ii. Remember, after installing the HID Xenon bulb, that the pack on its rear cannot be installed if the cable is connected to the pack – thin fingers or forceps are needed here to fit the cable into its socket
v. After repeating the above for the other headlight now might be the time to restore and re-surface the exterior of the lens – much easier off the vehicle.
w. With all that done you’re now ready to ready to re-install the lights and re-fit all the body panels.
The re-fit stage is pretty much a reversal of the strip down process discussed above but there are a few tips that may be useful.
• When re-fitting the headlights connect the assembly to the power supply loom and make sure the red tab fully engages to lock the connector. Place the headlight in situ but do not bolt it down. Do the same with the other headlight and test that all the bulbs are working.
• When you are satisfied that everything is working properly start the bolt down process with the bolt at the rear of the headlight unit and beside the Ballast Pack – if the bolt drops out of the socket before you get it into place you can lift the lamp back out to retrieve it.
o If you do not have a magnetic socket set put a little glazing putty or similar in the socket to prevent the bolt falling out – remember to clean it out when you’re finished.
• I considered it wise to replace all the old Speed Fasteners and bolts irrespective of their apparent condition. Each of the Speed Fasteners got a good coat of grease before fitting and those located in places where water and dirt could collect were covered with a good dollup of grease to minimise future corrosion problems.
• Clean and check difficult to get to body seams around the bumper and its closures with other body panels and repair any damage before re-assembly.
• When re-installing the bumper off it up to the front and in toward the radiator, when its resting securely in place check and ensure the locating pegs are properly engaged with their holes in the frame just ahead of each wheel. Install these bolts loosely before checking the final positioning of the bumper panel and its close line with the headlights then refit the remaining bolts. Tighten all to 7NM.
• If the mounting blocks – that secure the inner wheel arch to the bumper - fitted to the bumper seam have moved or been removed and re-fitted make sure to leave enough room for the wheel arch shroud/splash guard to fit between the metal wheel arch and the surface of the mount.
• Don’t forget to put the plastic shields back behind the headlamp washers if fitted.
• When the bumper is fully tightened down, use a wire hook to pull each headlamp washer forward and get hold of it so that you can push the cover back onto the cruciform.

[RichardSEL]

Osram Nightbreakers have a shorter life against their Philips rivals
One of my pair only lasted eight months
Osram Nightbreakers provide brighter and whiter light than do their Philips rivals
The Philips took some 10 mins to get up to full brightness IMO -- and after about 18 months started to dim down
back to their Halogen equivalents

[rosemary]

Hello Folks
Good to see you've had practice for your next job-strangely called "the parking sensors". My car has made me despair and I should have had my head examined.
On a successful psychiatric outcome I should have sold it long ago to some other mug, but like the idiot I am I continued in blind faith that the next repair would last at least a year, not so. I've tried a Mercedes now and am very tempted to trade my XF in for one, at least all the spare parts (if needed with it doesn't look like they will, it definitely feels solid and robust and all the parts are not from the cheapest of three quotes) come from the same place. My S-Type is essentially a body with with all new parts, although now it's losing coolant fluid somewhere.I wonder how long the body will last! Those fasteners on the under tray and wheel arch liners are a nightmare! JLR should be ashamed.
Dave.

[Cubist]

Osram Nightbreakers have a shorter life against their Philips rivals
One of my pair only lasted eight months
Osram Nightbreakers provide brighter and whiter light than do their Philips rivals
The Philips took some 10 mins to get up to full brightness IMO -- and after about 18 months started to dim down
back to their Halogen equivalents

I do hope the new ones I've installed last somewhat longer - I have no desire to go through that palaver again.

How many Jaguar engineers does it take to change a light bulb? Only one, but the hourly rate will bankrupt you.

[Cubist]

Hello Folks
Good to see you've had practice for your next job-strangely called "the parking sensors". My car has made me despair and I should have had my head examined.
On a successful psychiatric outcome I should have sold it long ago to some other mug, but like the idiot I am I continued in blind faith that the next repair would last at least a year, not so. I've tried a Mercedes now and am very tempted to trade my XF in for one, at least all the spare parts (if needed with it doesn't look like they will, it definitely feels solid and robust and all the parts are not from the cheapest of three quotes) come from the same place. My S-Type is essentially a body with with all new parts, although now it's losing coolant fluid somewhere.I wonder how long the body will last! Those fasteners on the under tray and wheel arch liners are a nightmare! JLR should be ashamed.
Dave.

Now Dave, don't get me started - I'm still trying to track down the 'now they work, now they don't' issue with my parking sensors'.

I must agree re the speed fasteners and JLR made some really dumb moves when the 'value engineers' got on board - heard the one about the steel exhaust hanger bracket fitted to an aluminium cross member?

Sadly such engineers have been on the loose across many marques and you'll find those same speed fasteners, and similar gaffes, on most cars including Mercedes, BMW and Audi. If they take the inbuilt obsolescence principle any further the cars won't make it out of the showroom.

[steve_m]

'Accelerated decrepitude';

Roy, Blade Runner.