jmello

I've been advised by my Mazda dealer that the adjustment device on the back of the low beam bulb is "stripped out" and the light cannot be adjusted. (Strange, he's the only one to have touched it) Rather than take out a second mortgage on my house, I'd like to change it myself. A couple of questions-
1-Can the "adjuster" be removed and replaced through the wheel well by removing the mud guard?
2-If not, does the headlight unit come out in one piece, i.e. complete with lens still attached?
3-Is it necessary to remove the lens from the headlight housing to change the adjuster?
4-Is the front bumper the only body panel requiring removal to extract the headlight?

I'll appreciate any help available on this since I've not been able to buy a shop manual here in New Zealand, am not familiar with the intricacies of the RX-8 and don't have a lot of confidence the dealer can/will do without damaging the car.

jmello

architect

Pull the front bumper. It's much easier to work on and takes little time (+- 10 minutes). You'll be able to see what exactly needs replaced and show the service writer first-hand what's wrong. Drive it without the front bumper to the dealer. That's what I did. I didn't want them screwing anything up.

rx8phase1

iTrader: (1)

just turn your wheel out and unscrew your mudflaps.esier if you take wheel off and no the whole case wouldnt come out well atleast i couldnt .i put in a h.i.d. conversion kit in my 8 and i did it by removin the mudguard

DOMINION

If you want to go in from the top you have to remove the covers (see pic) and thats a pain in the a$$. The red arrows in the pic are pointing to the part that is striped as there is one on each side.



The best way is to jack the car up remove passanger wheel or driver wheel and remove the black plastic water gard behind the headlamp.
If you have HID/Xenon I dont think you can adjust them (see pics). This is what the driver HID headlamp looks like.




If you dont have HIDs then you can adjust them with a long philips screw driver. But like you said, if the dealer stripped it then removal of the wheel is the best bet. As you can see in the pics. The part they stripped is way up in there and you might need to remove the whole headlamp and thats a pain in the a$$!!!

Passanger side.



Driver side.



I dont know how much that part is but they can order it for you. I hope.

jmello

First of all, thanks very much for sending such a thorough and informative reply. Who says no one cares? Anyway, the problem started when I went to get my annual Inspection sticker renewed and
the inspector announced that the left headlight was too low and couldn't be adjusted-I think HE stripped it out but can never prove it. I then took it to the dealer for repairs-he confirmed the adjuster was stripped but didn't get much joy there- He said the lens would have to be pried off to remove the headlight (is this true?) and "you always have scars when you do surgery". This would be the first RX-8 headlight he'd ever worked on but said he'd done a Mazda 6 headlight and it was "a real messy job" -Lots of scars I presume. I have the kind you can adjust with a Phillips screwdriver and you stick it in the white component that's in the center of your last picture-you can see the hole with the little plastic gear teeth (my gear teeth are metal) where you stick the Phillips. If that is where the stripped part is, I may be able to remove it without pulling the headlight. How long would you guess it would take a pretty careful first-timer to remove the whole headlight? I've ordered a shop manual from the U.S. but don't know if it'll get here to New Zealand before my inspection sticker expires. Just curious, is the car in your pictures a right-hand or left-hand drive? I wasn't able to clearly correlate the "passenger" and "drivers" sides to the pictures. I did notice when I got the car back from the dealer visit that he'd removed the splash guard in the wheel well to look at the back of the light-clean fasteners and fingerprints in the dirt-but then he said it would take him two days and maybe a NZ $1100.00 headlight plus labor to fix the problem! Thanks again Dominion-Great Avatar(s) you have.
Jim

DOMINION

Anything to help a fellow Kiwi out
First time should take you about 1hr to remove. Or more just depends on if you have help or not.
You know right now on ebay there are 2 sellers selling the passanger and driver front headlamps for about $200+ each+S&H. It would make more sence to me to just replace it. If thats not the case. I have a link I'll post about this guy who did his own HID style headlights on his Protege5(USDM). Not a bad job. But this will show you if he had any "scars". I have some on the inside of my head lights facing the Mazda badge. I have removed my front end one to many times.
Headlamp Link!
Oh BTW I have a left hand drive.
On a side note I have duck tape holding up my headlights. I droped the 2 screws holding up the lights when I was replacing them with the POS Piaa's I over paid for online.
If you need any more pix or help let me know. I'll be changing my stock set up to HID's real soon
-Gil

jmello

Dominion-Thanks for the further info-it's a big help! A clarification please, when you have time-

Is your estimate of "about an hour" the time for removing the whole headlight housing assembly from the car? The Mazda mechanic (?) sounded like it would take him a day!

If I have to remove the whole headlight unit to get to the adjuster, does the large clear lens have to be "pried off" for any reason as described by the mechanic?

Regards,
Jim