Alta light bar- can't get lights to aim higher
 

I just mounted my two Hella 500's on my new Alta light bar. Looks great at first glance until you actually use the lights. They are aimed WAY too low, and I can't get them to aim any higher. It's not a problem of the bumper being in the way either, as I mounted the bar as low as possible pretty much, and there is still room for play in the space department. It's just a limitation of the Hella hardware.

Has anyone figured out a way to make driving lamps on the Alta bar aim higher? I'm gonna have to figure something out such as make a bracket to attach to the Alta bar, or go back to mounting them on the bumper where they were, because there's no point in having them if they're not functional.

Not sure I follow you here. On the Hella 500's there's an adjusting nut / bolt at the knuckle below the light housing which articulates the vertical movement of the headlight assembly.

I have my set mounted same as yours and adjusted them in that fashion. I will see if I can find a pic / image for ya.

Attachment 45609

Also, remember they are not supposed to line up with your low or high beam headlights......if you try to make the beams line up, when you go for a drive the fogs beams will be pointed up into the trees.

I park facing my garage, and measure distances between the center of my headlight low beam and the center of my Fogs. If it's 14 inches, the when you are facing your garage door with the lights on,the distance betwen the beams of light should be about 14 inches apart too. That is a rough description of what to do but I think you get the idea.

Well these are driving lamps, and they should be adjusted to the level of high beams. And I do know about the nut.. the light won't articulate high enough. Right now, my lights are aimed as high as I can get them, and they are pointing at the pavement in front of my car instead of down the road where they should be. I think it may be a matter of shaving off some of the plastic light housing so it will rotate farther on the bracket.

I'll try and take a picture later tonight when it's dark.

I'm finishing up the wiring to make my Hella fogs active, when I'm done I'll get some photos of the fogs and driving lights aiming.

At 25 feet the center of the light beam should be aimed no higher than 4in above the center point of the lamp, they're designed to be level rather than upward. Which is why higher mounting gives slightly further reach of the light.

Exactly- but mine aren't level. They don't reach farther than the throw of my highbeams, rendering them essentially useless. And to clarify, these aren't fog lamps.

Ok, the way you said up at high beam level had me fearing you were trying to aim them higher than the lamp to be at the same height as the highbeams.

I'll get some photos of my up tonight, to compare with your setup and sort out the difficulty.

As will I. I'm also going to take a look at the mounting hardware on the lights to see if perhaps something can be "dremeled" out of the way to make more room for rotation.

OK so update- I dremeled the lamps, and it helped to get them aimed higher. I went for a drive and decided that driving lamps being mounted on either side of the alta bar aren't very effective either, as they're aimed too much to the sides.. so I moved them both to the center, and I'll have to go for another drive to see how they are.

Lows
http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2605/...8ef061d4_b.jpg

Highs w/ Hellas
http://farm5.static.flickr.com/4063/...5a81eb60_b.jpg

Those extra signs are at the end of the road a 1/4mi further down the road, makes a huge difference when it's a deer's eye.

And here's the mounting...
http://farm5.static.flickr.com/4026/...cb91414073.jpg

http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2765/...1c486907b1.jpg

http://farm5.static.flickr.com/4011/...1979167af3.jpg

http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2687/...5bae8bce6b.jpg

Hopefully that helps you a little bit. I do need to take the left one and pull it just a slight bit to the right, for courtesy's sake, but it's worked out very well, knowing what changes to expect from when they where bumper mounted.

Yours seem to be more centered than mine. Not sure how. Since the alta bar is flat, I find it odd that my lights seem to be aimed just a little bit too much to the outsides. I too am afraid of my left light being a bit too much to the outside, but then again unless I'm on a really wide, empty highway, I dim them against traffic anyway. I just really wish they designed the light bar to let the lights be mounted with the bolts vertically as well as horizontally like they are now, so you could retain the left-right adjustment. I might just fashion an extra L bracket to accomodate that if they start to piss me off too much.

Now we know why the Alta light bars were discontinued and on clearance so cheap. But it sounds like with a bit if ingenuity they can be made to work.

i bought a piece of aluminum L bar from lowes for like $15 and painted it black. (its the stuff that has pre-drilled holes) and just mounted the piaa's to that. so now you can mount them on the _ surface instead of a | surface. This also allows you to aim the lights left to right without messing up the light pattern.

Yeah I was going to suggest that, the biggest reason for me to go with the alta bar was the fact it has the very sturdy L brackets off of the bumper, retain the bolts that fit into the brackets that stick out and I suspect you could fabricate several different brackets for easy aiming.

I was under the impression the Alta bar had the lights mounted to the top of these bars...not a "front facing" bolt up. Maybe this is why they sold their bars with the IPC brand of lights ?

http://farm5.static.flickr.com/4026/...cb91414073.jpg

ANy lights on the alta bar must be mounted with the bolts pointing back, towards the rear of the car. In doing so, you lose your side-to-side adjustment because you can't rotate the light. I didn't know this before I bought the bar, and now that I have the bar, I don't know why they would have designed it like this... another case of function following form I guess.

It wouldn't matter if the lights were IPF, Hella, Piaa, whatever. They all mount the same AFAIK.

My guess, and this is pure speculation, would be that when weighing the pros and cons and there's more options of lights that would fit being lower and further out weighed the easy of aiming at top mounted. The hella's do allow a minimal amount of side to side fine tuning, and since you're skilled with a Dremel it sounds like you're going to be able to make it happen.

How do you figure the hellas allow some minimal side to side fine tuning? I mean I can sort of get them to be "tuned" by somewhat manhandling them in their brackets, but that's about it hehe.