How to aim USA delivered 993 headlights after applying aftermarket HID or LED bulbs or updated projector Lenses.

Disclaimer: The content of this page, relates specifically to the Porsche 993 (911 1995 to1998) The author here is not a professional automotive technician and the procedure described on this page may not be the best to use in all situations.  Many times a lot can be learned by simply watching qualified professionals work on your 993's headlamps. Though we strive to provide completely accurate and appropriate information on the given subject in this document, some of the information you find on this page may be in error, also opinions expressed on this page are just that, opinions, therefore, please feel free to use the information on this page at your own risk.

Please read this entire document before using its content to aim your 993's headlights. 

The factory procedure to aim 993 Headlights may not be suitable for a number of reasons once aftermarket upgrades to the headlamp pods or changes to the ride height or stance of a 993 are made. For this reason here is my first draft of how to do a DIY headlamp adjustment once these changes have been done. The below includes information and illustrations garnered from professional sources, US DOT documents, as well as sections of the Porsche factory documents covering this subject and my personal experience.

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Supplies & The Tool needed:

• A measuring tape
• A dry-erase marker
• A roll of 1/2" or 1/4" wide masking tape
• A wall or flat surface with  about a 40-foot distance of level pavement in front of it
• A piece of cardboard to block off a headlight
• A 5mm ball socket Allen Hex Key driver with a thin long shaft

Steps to aim your headlights:

1. Prepare your vehicle: Make sure your tires are filled to the appropriate air pressure and that you have around a half tank of gas as average ballast weight.
2. Making a Headlight Axis Mark: With a dry-erase marker, draw a small dot in the center of each low-beam headlight beam where they pass through the headlight face glass. This is the Headlight Axis Mark. 
3. Park your vehicle: Park your vehicle right in front of a vertical flat surface — this could be your garage wall, garage door, or a wall in a parking lot. You should have enough room in front of the wall to back up the front of your car 25 feet in a straight level line from that spot.
4. Jounce the suspension: Bounce the vehicle a few times on all four corners to allow the suspension to settle.
5. Create a Vertical Center Guide Line: Using a piece of masking tape, put a vertical mark on the wall or garage door in line with the center of your vehicle. Don’t worry about precise measurements — this mark will just serve as a guide. The hood badge is a good reference for the center.
6. Create the Vertical Headlight Axis Line on the wall: Place a vertical strip of masking tape on the wall in front of each headlight's projected low beam. The Headlight Axis Mark placed on the lens in step 2 should line up with the center of the vertical tape.
7. Measure the height of the Horizontal Headlight Axis Line: Using your measuring tape, measure from the ground to the headlight Access Mark on the headlamp lens from step 2.
8. Mark the height of the Horizontal Headlight Axis Line on the wall: For each headlamp measure up the wall and make a mark on the tape at the height of the measured Headlight Axis Mark.
9. Placing the driver's side Horizontal Headlight Cutoff lines: On the driver’s side of the wall, measure four inches below the axis height you marked and draw another line on the Vertical Headlight Axis tape line from step 6. 
10. Placing the passenger's side Horizontal Headlight Cutoff lines: On the passenger’s side, draw a line two inches below the axis height. These marks will serve as vertical cutoff points when you aim your headlights. The driver side mark is lower than the passenger side mark to reduce the glare seen by oncoming drivers. 
11. Mark the Horizontal Headlight Cutoff Lines: For each headlight, place a horizontal strip of masking tape above each cutoff mark from steps 9 & 10, making sure they are level. The bottom of the tape should line up with the measured cutoff line. 
12. Back your vehicle up: Back your vehicle in a straight line away from the wall. The front of your headlights should be 25 feet from the aiming wall chart you’ve created with masking tape.
13. Adjust your headlights: 
1. When adjusting each headlight individually block the illumination from the other headlight.
   
2. Then, as shown in the diagram below, use the ball head Allen hex key to turn the headlight pods adjuster screws.

3. 

   Illumination Position Relative to the HCL & the VHAL 

    Turn the adjusters in combination to position the top of the low beam light lines to line up with the bottom edge of your Horizontal Headlight Cutoff  Line (HCL) created in step 11. as shown in the illustration to the right while centering the illumination of the headlamp position over the Vertical Headlight Axis Line (VHAL) created in step 6.

• 

13.  Check the alignment: Remove the cardboard or jacket from the covered headlight and check the finished alignment. The beam from the driver’s side headlight should sit a bit lower than the one from the passenger’s side. This setup gives you proper visibility without blinding other drivers. The beams should also be aproximatly equal distant from the Vertical Center Guide Line created in step 5.

14.  Test your lights: After you’ve set your headlight alignment, take your vehicle out for a test drive to make sure the lights provide proper visibility. Xenon Aftermarket High-Intensity Discharge (HID) low beam lamps are considerably brighter than the DOT approved Halogen bulbs that came as original equipment on your car.  Aftermarket modificaions also may have a considerably different illumination fall-off  patern at edges of their projected beam so it may be found to be neccessary to readjust the headlights slightly lower than the DOT specification to avoid blinding oposing traffic. The goal is to not blind opposing vehicles' drivers. An indication of  the need to lower the beam height a little is if you find opposing traffic is flashing their high beams at you during night driving with just your low beams on.

Correctly aimed headlights allow you to drive safely without compromising the safety of drivers in opposing traffic. 

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Does the image in your external mirror wobble or vibrate while driving? It may be a sign that the glass face has come loose.

If the image in one of the external mirrors seemed to wobble when driving with the vibration of the car the glass face may be partially detached from its backing. If this is the case one can gently pull on the glass by the edge using a fingernail to pry it free from the housing to remount it before it is lost. If you can see that the adhesive backing has partially released but the glass seems to be stuck, applying a little heat from a hairdryer to the glass may help release the last little bit of the backing. 

If it seems you are applying more than then just a little force the source of the wobble may be elsewhere in the mirror mount or its adjusting gimble and is not addressed in this document.

The original part is a high-quality glass mirror and is a very expensive dealer part, $200+. The aftermarket replacements are made of plastic and are not of the same quality, so, I feel it is worth the effort to reuse the original glass part. If the root cause of the glass coming loose is that the sealing paint on the back of the mirror glass has failed, causing the glass to detach from its adhesive backing sheet, here is how to fix it:

• Clean and then spray the back of the mirror glass with white epoxy spray paint. If desired using a darker color paint will make the letting on the passenger side mirror more visible.
•  I avoided using acrylic paint as it can be prone to adhesion issues as the original paint had. Also; 
• I see no reason why a urethane-based spray paint wouldn't work just as well. 
• I purchased the spray paint at a home improvement/hardware store to reseal it and let it dry overnight.
• Peel off the mirror's remaining adhesive backing sheet from the aluminum backing plate in the housing. For me, the adhesive sheet peeled off easily in one piece. 
• Leaving the car out in the sun to warm it up can help in softening the adhesive or; 
• Using a hair drier to warm it up may help if you find the backing sheet stubborn to remove.
• Apply the wider variety of 3M Super Strength Molding Tape (double-sided) or similar in strips
  to cover the back of the mirror leaving the double-sided tape's second side red protection strips in place.
• Use scissors to trim the tape around the mirror so the tape strips do not extend past the edge of the glass.
• Peel the second side strips from the tape exposing the adhesive backing. Then;
• Gently press the glass into position onto the aluminum mount in the mirror housing for a perfect repair.
• The adhesive on the 3M tape is very strong so make sure the glass is oriented properly before the adhesive touches the backing plate.
• Take a look at the other mirror for reference and consider making some shims from cardboard and taping them in place on the inside edges of the mirror housing opening. This may be useful in ensuring a gap around the glass is relatively even when pressing the glass into place.
• I positioned the bottom edge of the glass into the proper position and then tilted the glass vertically where it came into full contact with the backing plate.
• Once the tape comes in contact with the backing plate it really can't be repositioned. 
• 
  

The takeaway from this is if one has a loose mirror face it may be the mirror backing has failed. If this is the case it can be removed and remounted before losing the glass and having to replace it.

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How to adjust the alternator and fan belts on a 993 using a belt tensioning gauge:

 

The below procedure is done using the inexpensive Gates KRIKIT Belt Tensioning Gauge referred to as "special tool 9574". 

There appears to be more than one variation in the KRIKIT device, one is for higher levels of tensioning than our cars require. Be sure to buy the one with the  15 to 70kg scale so it can be used with the process below.

KRIKIT devise with the 15 to 70kg force scale.

Also at the bottom of this URL Page is additional information concerning the belts, changing them, and a pulley update.

Pleae note the fan & alternator belts have a slightly narrower 9.5mm profile when compared with standard generic belts and may be most easily obtained as a dealer part. Using a wider profile V belt may result in a shortened belt service life.

If when properly tensioned you still find you are breaking belts consider the factory pulley update described at the bottom of this page.

If you found this page informative return to the main page and bookmark it for future 993 related servicing, repair, and upgrading guidance & information. If it saved you some aggravation, time or even some coin consider a donation through the button on the top left margin of this page. 

#belt #belts #pulley

Seats, Seat Motors, Switches and Adjustments

Seat adjustment is accomplished through four basic components, the control switch, the motors, their mechanical connection drive cables, and the seat jacks or positioning devices.  Usually, the motors are rather robust and if actuating a switch makes no sound it is the switch. The switch simply reverses the polarity of the current to the motor to move the seat adjustment in one direction or the other so if it works in one direction or makes a noise at its end stop and makes no noise or movement in the other the motor is good to go and it is probably the switch. If a motor seems to run free or make a slipping or grinding sound it's the mechanical drive cable's end termination.

Here is a page on how to remove a seat without drama to service its under-seat components.

The switch can be removed and tested if desired at it connection pins with an inexpensive

continuity tester or the most basic inexpensive volt/ohmmeter, both just a few dollars at Harbor Freight.

 

For the basic standard sport seat with two rocker switch controls the wiring diagram shows which pins on the switch pigtail should be used for this testing, see attached.

• Pin 2, Red wire -plus power
• Pin 1, Brown wire ground - negative power
• Pin 5, Black/Violet to motor
• Pin 3, Black/Green to motor

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  Sport Seat Switch

  With the rocker pressed in one position Pin 2 connects to  Pin 5 AND Pin 1 connects to pin 3
• When the rocker is pressed in the other position Pin 2 connects to Pin 3 AND Pin 1 connects to pin 5 reversing the direction of the motor and so the direction of the seat height.
• When the rocker is in the center neutral position no connections are made.

Spot Seat
Pigtail Pinouts 

For the Comfort Seats, with the three switches, they can be tested in a similar way by consulting the seat wiring diagram "Sheet 7 Seats" on this  page.

Part numbers for replacement parts can be found in the Seat Catalog on this page.

The basic rule is if no sound in one or both rocker positions it is probably the switch.

If it makes continuous free-running sounds or grinding slipping sounds and doesn't move it's the cables.

 

If the cause points to the switch try just hosing the switch out with spray electronic cleaner. If the root cause is simply a dirty contact it may begin to work properly.