How to adjust headlights?

[Mr. Bill]

On my '99 Legacy 2.5GT wagon, I lubricated the adjuster screws and put
an 8mm wrench on the little plastic adjusters. It took a couple of
seconds before I discovered that the little plastic caps were just
spinning around. In fact one of the four caps had fallen off before I
ever got to it.

When I pulled the caps off (it didn't take any effort), the steel screws
that were left have no heads or flats or anything that will let you turn
them. In fact the didn't seem to have anything for the plastic caps to
grip the shafts at all.

When I tried turning the shafts with a little pair of vise-grips the
shafts won't turn at all.

What gives? It looks like the shafts rusted, this knocked the plastic
caps loose and made the shafts very difficult to turn.

I can imagine dropping by the dealer and having them tell me that I need
2 new headlight assemblies for $500 each!

What do I do now? I need the headlights to point a little higher.

Mr. Bill

 

[Gil Cleeton]

Are you sure you should be turning the ends which were attached to the
plastic?
Shouldn't you be rotating the fitting at the other end of the screws?
I think the 'plastic' end is fixed.
Gil Cleeton

 

[Mr. Bill]

Not according to the service manual!

I can e-mail you the page, if you like.

Mr. Bill

 

[vic]

Easy to play or replace de screws, but how are you going te set those lights
right, maybe you gonna end up annoyng incoming traffic, and you won't see
any better

 

[Gil Cleeton]

I'm sorry I was thinking of my Pontiac
The adjuster ends on my Subaru 96 Legacy do have hexagonal flats and also a
Phillips cross indent though difficult to get a screwdriver in! It is
probably corrosion - I had that on the Pontiac.
Sorry
Gil