9 Sept 2018 - headlight alignment

Well I think I have the headlights adjusted per the service manual.  Now its time to take it out for a night time road test.  Weather permitting, I'll do that this evening.

9 Sept 2018 - headlight beam alignment

While aligning the headlamps today, the passenger side low beam; horizontal adjuster "popped".  I had to remove the headlight cover,headlight door and the headlamp holder/bucket.

There is a chrome headlight ring, holds the headlamp in, and that ring has two attachment points on the headlamp holder/bucket.  Those screws that attach the chrome ring to the headlamp holder come into contact with a screw on the horizontal and vertical adjusters.  So the pop was due to the adjuster screw no longer being able to move and the plastic screw clip on the adjuster seperated, rendering the adjuster useless.

I checked the screw clearances with the driver side and the driver side radiator grille is a 68 grille.  And there is between 1/8" to 3/16" space between the screws.  I also checked the other spare grilles that I have and the 68's have the clearance and the 67's have minimal to no clearance....

Passenger side grille assembly - low beam horizontal adjuster "popped" while making adjustments.  Red arrow indicates new adjuster that failed.  Blue arrow indicates the cause of the failure.

The stock screw location is "stripped".  So I used a replacement screw and used a locknut to secure the adjuster.

8 Sept 2018 - headlight adjustments

Although I have installed the grille mod, I did not yet setup the headlights for night driving.  Tomorrow, the plan is to get that done.

8 Sept 2018 - engine temp sensor installation

Today I installed the original style temperature sensor.

I drained about 4 quarts of coolant so that when I replaced the temp sensor at the intake manifold, I wouldnt have coolant everywhere.

The drained coolant looked pretty good for two years.

After installing the sensor, I filled up the radiator and overflow tank with Prestone 50/50 coolant.  That took about 30 minutes or so to burp the cooling system and get the proper level.  I will continue to monitor the coolant level.

3 Sept 2018 - headlight door grille mod

Here are a few more pics of the project...

Before the headlight door grille mod...

After the headlight door grille mod...

2 Sept 2018 - headlight door grille mod

I finally was able to put both radiator grilles back together and install.  There may be a few adjustments that need to be made but for the moment, I like what I have done.  I still need to adjust the headlights for night driving.

1 Sept 2018 - headlight grilles

While working on a mod to allow the headlights to function yet still have the grille doors "closed" has been a slow process.  I have both outer sections of the radiator grilles removed to allow working on the mod.

The mod in a nutshell is basically this; seperate the headlight door hinge from the headlight door and seperate the grille work from the headlight door and then mount the grille work to the headlight door hinge(both sides).

That is not too bad to do, the hard part is to be able to secure the headlight door hinge/grille work and then still be able to adjust the high and low headlights as needed.

I have a couple of ideas on how to do that and I am in the process of obtaining parts to test those ideas.  While I wait for parts to arrive I have been cleaning up, removing rust from various areas of the passenger and driver side radiator grille assemblies.


I was able to install the lower heim joints and bolts that will allow adjustment of the headlight door hinge/grille work assembly.  As soon as I pick up the 1/4-28 threaded rods and cut to fit, I should be able to connect the lower heim joint to the upper heim joint which attaches to the headlight door hinge/grille work assembly.

driver side: heim joint mounted and spacers to prevent side to side movement

passenger side: the painted bolt is used to mount the vacuume motor.  The heim joint is mounted to a bolt with the spacers you see so that the movement from side to side is minimized.

Here is the headlight door hinge with both spring mounts removed