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The lights you have are hopeless -- sorry. 200 1992

I'm afraid that you've discovered the one shortcoming of the '86-93 240 as they were sold in this country -- not Volvo's fault, really, but mandated by our stupid federal government (which has since changed their minds regarding later model cars).

There is nothing you can do by aiming those awful lights that you just bought (you should have saved your money):
Aim them down, and they light more of the pavement (little use to enabling you to see things ahead of you, though, as headlights should). No one drives by looking down at the pavement -- people drive by looking ahead, but that's not where the headlights illuminate.
Aim them up, instead, and you'll find that your high beams, when you want to use them, are shining up to the sky to illuminate UFOs.
It's all in the optics, as these lights are just not directing the light where it should be.

In contrast, Euroheadlights do the job right -- on low beam, they light up the road ahead of you, and more so to the right (where deer and other wildlife, or pedestrian, might wait before jumping out in front of you), but without blinding oncoming drivers because of their low beams' sharp cutoff. In high beam, they illuminate the roadway far ahead. And they can do that without excessive wattage bulbs! It's all in their superiod optics (rear reflector and front lens).

BTW, going for higher wattage bulbs is no solution: (1) it just puts more photons in the same wrong places that the original bulbs did; and (2) the additional current degrades (by heat) your car's wiring (insulation) and switches, for a shorter life expectancy [though correctable with relays]. You're just left with the same problem.

The benefits of Euroheadlights used to be easy to obtain -- just swap out the standard sealed beams for a set of Cibie substitutes! Nowadays, without sealed beams, you have two choices: either buy expensive Euroheadlights from someone who can get them from Europe, or rip out your lights and fabricate some way to mount "sealed beam" headlights (which you will replace with Cibies, of course), either dual 7in round or quad 5.25in rounds. The former (buying Euroheadlights) is more expensive, but really easy in terms of time and work, as well as very good looking; the latter (fabricating mounts for sealed beams)can be very cheap, but not easy, and the appearance depends on your ingenuity -- it can be nice, or really ugly (I've seen examples of both on this list).

I'm afraid that these are your only options. You should, by the way, do an archive search to find out all the thousands (probably) of messages on this list devoted to this one frustration. It's probably one of the three most numerous topics on this list, besides synthetic lubricants and passing emissions tests.
Sorry.






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