Loose bulbs in headlights

tryed to adjust my headlights last night,,,, turned the 8mm bolts forever and didn't see any movment in the beam, then I reached around back of the lites and could move the bulbs in the headlite with my finger which would change the beam pattern aren't they supposed to be tight

 

Hi. Just noticed same thing on my 2010. Did you ever resolve issue?

 

12 year old thread. That might be a record. Just get new housings

 

2010, 2nd gen. So you have 9003/H4 bulbs. They should lock in fairly tight/securely. I would doublecheck that the bulb(s) in question are inserted correctly and rotated until they're locked in place. The H4/9003 *Should* only be able to rotate and lock into the reflector *one way,* but I have managed to get one "locked in" rotated 120ish degrees off, which had a pretty noticeable effect on the beam pattern.

"Loose bulbs" and "bulb shake" seem to be more of a 3rd gen headlamp issue, more noticeable when people have either HIDs or LED retrofit bulbs with a large heatsink. Halogen bulbs, either H9's or H11's don't seem to have enough mass hanging off the back of them to let the bulb waggle around in the gasket seal.

Also, as far as headlamp aim, make sure you're using the correct aiming adjuster (should be the lower one, further down on the lamp) as the tacoma lamps have both vertical and horizontal aim adjusters. The horizontal aim adjustment is not legal per SAE standards/DOT regs, so its covered with a removeable cap. If you're actually turning the adjuster and not seeing any vertical change, you may be wall/cross-eyeing your headlamp instead.

And just to pimp Dan Sterns excellent website, here is his excellent article on how to Properly/most effectively aim your headlamps/fogs/driving lights.

http://www.danielsternlighting.com/tech/aim/aim.html