|
|
|
Sept 16, 2010 13:42:21 GMT
|
swmbo says no to the big stuff (driveshafts) but you get your fix with the small stuff, quality. A real craftsman! There's always things to be done on it. It's more a case of me pulling my finger out and actually doing it. Total spend on dashboard $13. SWMBO approved. |
| |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Sept 17, 2010 0:33:18 GMT
|
Completed the current dashboard lighting. Improved the lightbulb design:  Which looks like this when switched on (sorry it was a bit dark):  --Phil |
| |
|
|
|
|
|
Sept 19, 2010 22:54:29 GMT
|
Slow progress. Was at the auto parts store earlier to see someone and remembered I needed bulbs for the front marker lights. Picked them up and brought them home, and tried to figure how to get at the bulb holders to change the lights. Ah yes, reach up inside the wing. Having lived here long enough by now, I am jaded towards nooks and crannies. Out comes the bug spray. A green lizard looks at me, turns pink as I shoo it away. SCOOOOOSH  This jumps out at me, flailing. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Latrodectus_geometricusIt's one of them. I hate spiders. Car has been doused in bug spray (several more fell out, similarly flailing) and I'm going to attempt to probably put the hosepipe up into the area and maybe THEN reach up inside to change the bulbs... --Phil |
| |
|
|
|
|
|
Sept 19, 2010 23:22:26 GMT
|
AGH !!!!! I'm not bothered by spiders, but I don't like that at all....well avoided mate.... Can you slam the hell out of this BTW and still pass inspection ??  |
| |
|
|
|
|
|
Sept 20, 2010 0:37:48 GMT
|
Can you slam the hell out of this BTW and still pass inspection ?? Yes It's unlikely to get slammed unless I get totally fed up with the handling. It's going to retain the stock ride height (though it looks like I need to adjust the rear torsion bars because it has a bit of 'gangsta lean' right now. The local inspection place looks at the car this way; Did it drive here and not fall apart? Bonus. Do the lights and wipers work? Yes? Okay, there's a year's tag... In a way I actually miss having to go through MoT, it picks up the little bits I miss. --Phil |
| |
|
|
|
|
|
Sept 27, 2010 2:39:28 GMT
|
See previous(ish) post with the spider for reference. Having had a sudden bout of sensible, I gingerly stuck my head under the car the other day to eyeball the socket for the back of the front marker lamp. both fronts have never worked, due to access.  The only access to the lampholder is to jack the car up some and reach up inside the wing. In France that might be fine, but here in the sub-tropics, it's never a good idea. There could be anything lurking up there from ants to spiders to hornets, birds and possum. All of which will attempt to maim you in the most effective way possible. The bout of sensible continued, and with the fear of what may be in the shadows I started with the 8mm spanner and began to undo the bolts holding the plastic inner arch liner in. Needless to say the bolts all came out, one tug on the thing and it broke into about twelve pieces. Poo. Tore the rest out, got showered with the remnants of old mud dobbler ( www.tulsamastergardeners.org/insects/mud.html) nests and other detritus. Copiously sprayed bug spray and left it a bit. Cleared out some of the spiderwebs and nests and took a look:   Those are hornets nests. Screwdriver and a pressure washer will sort those out.  All in pretty good nick. I think I'm just going to clean it up and coat it in stonechip.  The offending article. Popped the bulb out and stuck in a new one.  Let there be light. Gee, what a saga just to change a $%^&ing lightbulb. --Phil |
| |
Last Edit: Sept 27, 2010 2:40:57 GMT by PhilA
|
|
|
|
|
Sept 27, 2010 6:00:26 GMT
|
Hey Phil, I'm really enjoy reading about your engine rebuild. Might I suggest something I did with my gta - I rewired the side markers to indicate along with the front turn signals. They will flash on an opposite pattern to the fronts in the european way unlike the N.Am. way of both flashing at the same time.. gives the car a more european look. My only grief is the side marker bulbs are not as visible during the daylight, alas perhaps you can help me build some led bulbs for that purpose. Here's where I got the info for the signal wiring: www.danielsternlighting.com/tech/markerflash/markerflash.htmlAlso, I notice you are quite competent when working with the vehicle's electrics, what is your background in this? Anyhow, have a good day! -Albert |
| |
|
|
|
|
|
Sept 27, 2010 14:50:00 GMT
|
Hey Phil, I'm really enjoy reading about your engine rebuild. Might I suggest something I did with my gta - I rewired the side markers to indicate along with the front turn signals. They will flash on an opposite pattern to the fronts in the european way unlike the N.Am. way of both flashing at the same time.. gives the car a more european look. My only grief is the side marker bulbs are not as visible during the daylight, alas perhaps you can help me build some led bulbs for that purpose. Here's where I got the info for the signal wiring: www.danielsternlighting.com/tech/markerflash/markerflash.htmlAlso, I notice you are quite competent when working with the vehicle's electrics, what is your background in this? Anyhow, have a good day! -Albert Albert, I was toying with the idea of doing this, as the turn signals are not visible from the side of the vehicle. The wiring at the front of the vehicle needs some attention as I'm not happy with full headlight current passing through the switch on the steering column, especially as I plan on installing more lights up front. Will probably wire the side markers on both the front and the back in the same fashion. My background is just hobby. I like working with electronics, electrics and have always had a penchant for digital electronics. I'm beginning to learn and understand better the digital fuel and ignition management the car has, simply through troubleshooting and following logic. Depends on where you are and what you have- both AutoZone and Canadian Tire sell 5W capless LED replacement bulbs- only problem is the stock aftermarket ones don't work properly in Daniel Stern's configuration. Making a set that would work isn't technically impossible but bright white LED's through amber lenses tend to turn a sort of sickly green color because the LED has too much blue in it. (Been there, done that). Amber LED's are hard to come by off-the-shelf right now and to be honest I'd not worry, other than the standard bulbs seem to have a penchant for melting the lenses on these... --Phil |
| |
Last Edit: Sept 27, 2010 20:19:00 GMT by PhilA
|
|
|
|
|
Sept 27, 2010 16:04:27 GMT
|
|
That spider man, messed up! That would put me off dark spaces for life.
|
| |
Well, that's won me over. * abandons logic* |
|
|
|
|
Sept 28, 2010 1:27:00 GMT
|
That spider man, messed up! That would put me off dark spaces for life. Yeeeeeeeees. They get bigger and meaner than that too. They move fast, are relatively intelligent and aggressive like rats.  ...and that wasn't something I was happy seeing in the trashcan either. Possum are ugly, smell like they've died and to top it off, bad-tempered. They get everywhere and destroy stuff too. --Phil |
| |
Last Edit: Nov 9, 2014 4:04:24 GMT by PhilA
|
|
|
|
|
Sept 28, 2010 9:27:17 GMT
|
|
Hey Phil, I had problems with the headlight switch dying on me too. I went the easy route and bought an upgraded wiring harness for the lights that came with relays (can't remember what type).
Installing this harness solved two issues for me:
1. Headlights going dead after 15mins of driving with them on at night (tell tale sign of them flashing on and off then nothing)
2. Desire to switch out the sealed beams for upgraded H4 bulbs (picked up a set of Phillips H4s from powerbulbs.c0m)
So with my Hella foglights and the H4s, I get a pretty good swath of light on country roads with a great cut off as well - much better than expected from a H4 housing replacement made in India. I guess there are some good things on the cheap from overseas...
Anyhow I digress, all for under $100 and a bit of patchwork adapting the car's H4656 (i think that's what it was) to the harness' H4 plug and slotting the housings into the grill.
To date with over a year driving in the winter thru summer I have had not a single issue with this setup. Through rain and ... rain (it's all we got last winter here in BC) pelting into the engine bay through the slit between the grill and the hood, no shortages either ( I did not have a rubber cover to put over the back of the housing to protect the connection aside from some diaelectric grease in the fittings.
So that's my story with the headlights. I will try to upgrade the h4 bulbs to a higher wattage to see if the harness will handle it. Perhaps an 85w bulb would do. I kind of miss having the extra long throw from proper hid lights found on new cars (seeing roadsigns 2kms down the highway in the prairies is kind of special I think)
Ah, another project is to spray down the foglight lenses with Duplicolor Metalcast Yellow paint (as per instructed on Daniel Stern's site) to get that full french yellow foglight effect.
As for the brighter side markers, I'm not too concerned, I they work quite well as is, I'm sure people notice more because they don't expect a car from the 80s to have side markers that flash like turn signals ha ha ha... Well it's late, I'm off to bed.
If you're interested in which harness/sealed beams I went with I can dig up the sellers on ebay, as I said they quality from both products has surpassed my expectations and saved me the grief of sourcing a new headlight switch.
so long!
|
| |
|
|
|
|
|
Sept 28, 2010 13:52:16 GMT
|
Albert, I have various gauges of wire here at work that often get trimmed off, so I am going to make a high current bus for the front of the vehicle off the battery feed, fused. The original headlight wiring harness is going to drive a relay on each side. The fogs already have a relay from the factory, but those on mine are the original Valeo/Marchal units and no longer function properly- one has a smashed lens, the other is cracked and corroded internally. Never going to find a replacement set but the local auto parts store does have some fairly decent rectangular fogs as a replacement. It rarely gets really foggy here. I've only used the foglights on my truck in earnest once in three years. Creating the harness from scratch for me is going to be a fairly simple task. I'm retaining the stock sealed-beam style lamps for now, and new harness connectors are available- mine have seen better days for sure. I'm wiring with about 500 Watts of lighting on the front in mind. Not sure the alternator can handle that but around here high beam never gets used for too long, the roads are too busy and straight to have a barrage of light. I'm probably going to end up importing some lights. The ones here that are good are horribly overpriced, and the off-the-shelf offerings are poor. In the UK I had a nice combination- standard 65W H4 main beam of the car's headlights to give a bit of localised illumination, a pair of Hella Comet 500's with *coughcough130Wcough* bulbs in which gave a narrow beam with an effective throw of over a mile, and sign illumination of over 3 miles. I never got round to fitting a pair of wide-beam lamps as those were quite adequate. Metal reflectors and glass lenses, a very pancake-flat design and rated by Hella up to 200W. They used to toast the insects that got squashed on the front of them with 130W bulbs! Only problem with a large set of lights is when you dip them down... your eyes are so used to decent lighting that a pair of 55W dip beams might as well not even be on My headlight switch has failed anyhow, so that does need to be addressed first. I'm quite satisfied with the lighting on the front of the car being North American spec. I'm going to hook the DRL's up because they currently don't work. --Phil |
| |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
At a mojo low with the car right now. It's just sat outside on axle stands, with three wheels.
My tools haven't turned up. Possibly they are lost in the post forever (hopefully just slow but eh)
Need some sort of motivation other than going outside and starting it up occasionally.
--Phil
|
| |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Still no tools. Washed the wheelarch out. 24 years of muck onto the floor.  It's now the cleanest part of the car.  More to follow as and when. --Phil |
| |
Last Edit: Oct 7, 2010 23:53:11 GMT by PhilA
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Excellent, although I feel you should stick a couple of bags of conkers up there to discourage those bloody spiders from moving in again... |
| |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Thrasher:- No, that would just give them ammunition. In other news:  !!! ;D Tools finally arrived. These ones (or at least, an equivalent) are listed locally as special-order only, $99.35. Balderdash to that. Was worried they'd gotten lost in the mail, but the mail was simply being slow. Next up, ordering new CV boots. --Phil |
| |
|
|
marksparks999
Part of things
I aim to live forever, or die trying!
Posts: 656
|
|
|
|
sounds like SWMBO...  |
| |
Retroless at the moment... but on the hunt for something old!
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Blah blah circlips, blah blah gaiters, blah blah bearing races, blah blah driveshafts  Gaiters arrived today but the inner bearing race is totally shot- that driveshaft had a "recon" sticker on it which was still legible, so I know that wasn't reconned properly. Both gaiters have failed, the bearing there is shot (shiny new one for reference) and the outer hub bearing is yet to be taken apart. Going to get the new bearing pressed on tomorrow hopefully. The bearing there is supposed to hold one end of the gaiter which fixes to the transaxle housing on the gearbox, sealing it. There's a tripod on the end (took that off already in that picture) which fits into the diff. No wonder it was leaking, there is about 30 degrees slop in that old bearing, none in the new. --Phil |
| |
Last Edit: Oct 13, 2010 0:08:15 GMT by PhilA
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Took my driver's side driveshaft to work and used the hydraulic press (newly fixed!) to drive the old bearing off the shaft. Went off with a POP of rust. Cleaned it up. Good to go. Time after work tonight was mine, so I started work on my driveshafts. Unfortunately this is a messy, greasy job and SWMBO would kill me if I messed up the camera, so there's no "during" shots. On this driveshaft the gaiter forms part of the gearbox, as this side goes inside the transaxle, right into the diff.  In short, new grease in the CV, squeezed out the new boot with new clips on it, drove the new inner bearing on and fixed the gaiter to it. Crimped everything down, cleaned it up, knocked the tripod back on and stuck the circlip back on. Passenger side (right) one to do now. Inner boot on that is fine, just the outer needs doing. --Phil |
| |
Last Edit: Oct 15, 2010 0:10:28 GMT by PhilA
|
|
|
|
|
Oct 16, 2010 15:56:34 GMT
|
Gotta sort the running issues but it now moves under its own power. First time in over two years  --Phil |
| |
Last Edit: Oct 16, 2010 16:08:49 GMT by PhilA
|
|
