Old Round Headlight Aiming Tool?

[noacronym]

Back i the 70's when I would take my '68 Camaro to be inspected, I remember the man had this tool dooflotchie of some kind, about the size of a shoebox, best as I recall. He would attach it somehow to the round headlight bulb and take some kind of reading off of it. I suppose it somehow made use of the little tits that are of the face of those bulbs, but that's my guess. I've tried doing a search for headlight aiming tools and have seen some for $900 or more, that are on a stand. But I don't remember any stand  back then. He would just clip it on the bulb. Is my recollection wrong? If I've got it right, I wonder where you can get one of those old tools. Thak you.

[JFranklin]

I have a set of those in my garage somewhere. If I run across them, I'll give you some info or photos.

[The 55er]

Those old shoebox things that attached to the headlights were called Hoppy headlight aimers. Every old time garage and state inspection station had them, I haven't seen any lately but there must be some out there as they were pretty common items. 

[wayne sheldon]

If they're the ones I remember? My dad hated them! California had a flirtation with annual and/or random inspections. There were two of the dumb things, one for each headlamp, and yes they sat against the three flat tabs on the headlamp bulb. The problem with the design was, that they had an alignment sight between the right and the left which ASSUMED (you KNOW how that word is spelled!) that both headlamps were perfectly placed at the factory and that NOTHING had ever happened to the car to alter their placement.

He had a company purchased car that later became his, and although there were no known accidents or issues, every single time he would get forced into a "state inspection", they would screw up his headlamps due some extremely minor misalignment between the fenders. They of course were "experts" doing what they were trained to do! Most times, no amount of explaining the geometry would keep them from screwing up the aim. And that evening, he would have to once again park the car on a level spot facing a wall and take his headlamp beams out of the gutter where the aiming boxes always put them.

[rocketraider]

That sounds like the operator didn't calibrate the aimer for floor slope before using it. Once you make that calibration it should be good for a while if you're using the same area for headlight aiming.

 

From last year around this time. You can see the aimer's "floor level" adjuster dial in a couple of the pictures.

 

 

[joe_padavano]

Something like this.

 

[28 Chrysler]

The body shop I worked at had a set that was held on with suction cups. I aligned many during final reassembly of the modern cars. On the old cars it was done after hours in the dark.

[dictator27]

Those little locating "tits" or tabs on headlights or whatever anyone prefers to call them have a name.  They were officially referred to as "gizmos" in the instruction manual for the aimers I used many years ago.

Edited September 8, 2023 by dictator27 (see edit history)

[wayne sheldon]

2 hours ago, dictator27 said:

They were officially referred to as "gizmos" in the instruction manual for the aimers I used many years ago.

 

Now, THAT is funny!

[Rexville48]

I also believe that I have a set with adapters that I’d be willing to part with. If interested send me a message and let dig them out for pictures. Mike