Its the plastic ones that i have, however i always thought that the cable was an integral part of the unit - ever since my cable rusted and snapped immediately where it enters the shell, the n/s headlight unit has pointed extremely downwards, seemingly held there by some sort of spring, as when you push it back up, it rebounds. Could there be something additional at fault? I'm loathe to drive it at night with essentially only one headlight.

If I remember correctly with plastic headlight bowls on my other Dyane the cable just clips into the metal holder of the adjuster on the bowl. The spring tension on the adjuster pulls the headlight always to a lower setting and the cable tensions it up (so adjuster and cable is always in tension) If you do not use cable just adjust the small screws for up down to bring it to correct position and use car. In all the time I have had the 2 Dyanes I do not think I have ever used the knob under the dash - light load or full family etc..
I hope I have made sense - sometimes English is hard....

Nippy, our ex sidewinder, has no adjusters and, as above, you just need to use the two adjuster screws on the front of the headlamp reflector where it goes onto the bowl to bring the light beam back up.

okidoki. im backshift tomorrow, so ill have a play in the AM and see what can be done

thanks folks!

Probably the adjuster's broken - they're fragile. SPOG sell new ones.

Success! Used the adjuster screws (which I clearly knew were there ) and all is now good.

Well, I did get flashed by a bunch of people on the way home so they're probably pointing all over the shop, but at least I can see where I'm going now!