Jeff20B

iTrader: (13)

Yes but if you happen to be driving with a pair of near infrared pass-through filter goggles on to view the world in a new way, only 1157 bulbs are visible to you. The LEDs aren't. So try not to get rearended when you switch to LEDs. This goes for everyone living in a place where there are a lot of tech geeks out there.

Jeff20B

iTrader: (13)

What did I do to my FB today? I got everything back in and ready to test drive but then I decided to swap in an Atkins serpentine pulley set. I mean ioTus recently did so why not?

I hit a delay when the alt I wanted to use had the wrong length spacer placing the pulley too far forward so I went with the original alt and it located the pulley correctly. Both spacers were the same length so something in the alt shaft is different between the two. Doesn't surprise me. I compared 5 alts and only two were the same. That's Mitsubishi for you. Mitsubishi = _its_b_s__

dougingraham

I've seen the effect and no way would I ever try to drive a car wearing them. You have actually seen people doing this? Give it a few more years and all cars will be using LED's. Why? Because the cost crossover is coming and the model year after the day they get cheaper is when the OEM's will start using them everywhere. You only find them in the high end cars today.

I consider LED's a safety feature when used as brake indicators because they come on close to 0.1 seconds faster. And at 70 mph this is about 10 feet of additional time for the person behind you to stop.

Anyway, thanks for the warning. Hopefully they will get darwined before they rear end any RX-7's

DivinDriver

iTrader: (15)

Got out for a drive last night as planned; replacement diff is still tight and smooth. Still need to do something more for the steering - - may have a slight misalignment, and that coupled with simple wear makes the car a bit dodgy.

I think it should be possible to shim the steering box pivot screw carrier to reduce the wear-induced play, but the shim needs to be made of hardened steel if it's to last at all. Not sure where I can source a few square inches of hardened 1-mil shim stock; everybody wants to sell me a 50' roll at $$$$$$$.

ioTus

iTrader: (5)

DivinDriver - we were able to eliminate 100% of, what i assumed was, wear induced play. Just loosened the lock nut on the top of the steering box, and with the car jacked up, tighten the screw until when you wiggle the steering wheel back and forth it immediately turns the wheels. Lock that nut back down and voila.

It made all the diff in the world when we did that. I literally thought my only solution was rack and pinion - but after we got the steering tightened down, and then the power steering pump back on her, she handles like a DREAM. No more random lane-hopping.

Jeff20b - what alt are you putting on what block??? pulley position should be identical on all alts - but spacers might be diff. Atkins should have the spacers. I asked them to send me the FD spacer with my pulley kit (and they did).

Jeff20B

iTrader: (13)

S4 NA 70 amp alt on an S4 waterpump on an R5 engine in a GSL-SE. I guess I could throw an FD alt in there if I wanted to. It just has to fit an S4 waterpump. But then all the wiring and everything is already done for this alt. I'm nut running a stereo or big driving lights.

The other alt is also an S4 NA 70 amp but it placed the pulley too far forward even though both spacers are the same length. So it is probably the shaft. Either way the alt that's on there now will work. If I ever need to swap to the FD alt, I'll talk to Atkins, thanks.

dougingraham

Tried the CAN bus LED bulb I bought just for this test in the GSL-SE brake lamp and found that it still does need the load resistors to keep the STOP LAMP idiot light from coming on. Replaced the backup lights with LED bulbs. One didn't work out of the box so I get to find out about their replacement policy.

On the GSL-EV I finished fixing my wheel well issue on the wheel well side. Applied primer and then undercoating. Took the obligatory photos. It turned out better than I expected it to. If it lasts 5 years I will be satisfied. Also reattached the E brake cable.

Frankenrex

iTrader: (1)

Shorter, actually.

Frankenrex

iTrader: (1)

That works fine until your steering box is worn a lot in the middle (where the steering spends most of its time,) and tightening it up where it's nice in the middle makes it too tight to turn 1 turn past that. Sad fact of recirculating ball steering. They used to make replacement sector gears to fix the issue, but apparently no more.

Frankenrex

iTrader: (1)

I'm going to try some cheapies from eBay/China and see how they work. I've been impressed with the white 194 and panel interior lamps I've gotten so far. They light up my interior like Times Square.

Not to knock your work, but keep an eye on that; you've just used fiberglass to repair a structural reinforcement for the control arm mount.
A $100 Harbor Freight welder and some 18-16 ga. steel sheet (maybe heavier) would fix that up right quick. Cold galvanize or POR-15 to keep it from happening again. Much simpler than swapping everything to an entirely new chassis, and could be done better/stronger than new.

Fungus Mungus

iTrader: (9)

All this talk about bulbs provoked me to put the bed the very first FB fix I had attempted. About 8 months ago, when I first got her, I noticed that the bulb in the heater control was burned out. I'm not talking about the fan and heat dials...one of those was burned out too...but the actual push-button climate control face. I knew those words on there (Vent, Def, etc) should light up, and it irked me that they didn't. I figured this would be a nice, easy first fix I could do on my FB while I got to know it. I was wrong.

After consulting the web 3 times, I finally figured out how to get the console stripped down to the expose the heater control. That is where I was stumped. The heater needed to come out, but it was held in by two harnesses in the back. One was some kind of molex connector which really needed two hands to get apart, and the other was a round connector. I couldn't get a good look at either as there was no room to see or maneuver. The scans of the parts manual offered very little clue as to what those plugs actually looked like and how they might come off without breaking. Very frustrating.

I said fk it and decided to move onto more pressing issues...my steering, so I left the console apart, leaving the interior looking like a theft recovery. I resolved that the console would not go back in until I'd replaced that bulb. That was 8 months ago.

This evening, armed with my LED light wand and reading glasses, I looked at the heater from every angle I could. I could see the two plugs. I could get one hand kinda up in there, but I just didn't have the leverage to pull the molex apart with one hand, I noted, however, I was able to pull the heater control out just a little bit. Enough to expose 3 screws on the top of the front panel. I wasn't sure exactly where the light bulb would be, but I suspected it would be behind the panel there somewhere, so I got a stubby phillips. I couldn't get it in the screws…the heater wouldn't' come out far enough to clear the dash so I could get access to those screws. Then I remembered I had a cheap little "Made in China" right angle ratchet screw driver. It was a tiny thing that could get into really tight places and take out screws.

I was able to get that thing in there with room to spare. Ratcheted out 3 screws and popped the top panel off and I see a light bulb with an orange rubber condom on it. It's attached with a little twist-lock thing which I had very little access to, not being able to get the whole control unit out of the dash. But a pair of needle nose pliers managed to twist the bulb enough to coax it out of its home. Here it is…my Moby Dick:



I pulled the bulb and confirmed it was a standard neo-wedge bulb used in every car in the 80s and 90s.



Elated by my success, I ran to my parts box filled with various trim screws, bolts, nuts, fuses, bulbs, and other odd car fasteners left over from my Civic. I found the instrument cluster bulbs I'd been looking for. DRAT!



They were too big. I remembered the EG Civic's climate control bulbs were smaller than that, but I don't have any of those. I'll be heading to the parts store tomorrow to see if they have any of these. If not, I'll be ordering it online.

It's such a small thing, but this thing has been nagging me for months. I feel even better than when I'd finished replacing my front suspension or rear axle. Not logical, I know. But it's the truth.

fm

Jeff20B

iTrader: (13)

I test drove it today. The new clutch worked flawlessly. The serpentine setup seemed to work too.

It didn't want to idle very well when I got back. There might be something in the carb (debris). I'll look into it tomorrow.

dougingraham

Did you document your panel interior lamp upgrades somewhere I failed to look?

I know I used fiberglass to repair that area and I was concerned about doing so. The glasswork I have done is with structural epoxy and the glass used should handle the kind of loads placed on it. My big concern is did I stop the crud from spreading? And the answer is that it probably doesn't matter. I am seeing rust forming on this particular car at some of the seams where Mazda covered the seams with some sort of caulk material after joining the sheet metal. The metal is rusty under the caulk and looks like it starts at the spot welds and works its way out from there. I will keep an eye on these repairs. This repair is on my GSL-EV so it will see between 3 and 4 thousand miles per year at most as it has a realistic range of under 70 miles and 90% of those miles are under 45mph. The most likely time for this particular repair to fail would be when standing still doing an EV inspired burnout. The second most likely would be in a panic stop at highway speeds. Both of those situations are maximum loads on the control arms.

Thanks for the concern!

Adam12A

Got an Atkins Racing built 12A Street with low miles put in the car and test fired. Sadly I had a perfectly good motor before but the exhaust had been hung without one of the hanger donuts and it snapped off a header stud. Then that header stud refused to come out. Now I'm gonna decide between the 45 weber or the 48 dellorto.

dougingraham

This would be a perfect place to put in an LED. An amber led with around a 2000 ohm resistor would never fail. You would have to experiment with the resistor to get the brightness you want but anything between 410 ohms (brightest but needs a 1/2 watt rated resistor) 600 ohms (very bright but needs a 1/4 watt resistor) and about 10k ohms will light it up. If I were doing this I would sand the end of the LED flat which unfocuses the light and gives a beam spread of around 120 degrees. I would start out with a 2k ohms expecting that would be about the right amount of brightness. The connections are polarized so it will only work connected one way and will not be harmed if hooked up backwards but wont light up either. You connect the resistor in series with one of the legs of the LED. It doesn't matter which one in this case.

One of the lamps on my air handling push buttons does not always come on. But it does sometimes. I always got the impression that the lamp would illuminate only when the cycling of the flaps and louvers in the ventilation system finished moving that the lamp would light up. If this is true then your bulb may not be burned out. It would be prudent to verify that before you go to extraordinary measures to replace it.

Siraniko

iTrader: (13)

cant resist so bro and i brought home a complete gsl-se. air dam rear spoler tokico illuminas and azenis. purchase price is not even 1/2 of total cost of the above items. ita flooded and i need to drain old gas which smell like varnish

DivinDriver

iTrader: (15)

Drove her to the local meet, got her 'ooh'ed and 'aah'ed at, then got rained on driving home.

It is NOT suposed to rain in SoCal in July.

Luckily, she's recently waxed. Still gonna take some time to get spotless again.

Was a fun drive, though. & the ol' wipers worked just fine.

johnemac

Still trying to decide if I should swap in my all black 1979 interior into my 1984 gal?

RxTex

iTrader: (4)

siraniko~ nice grab!! looks like a clean car. ive been waiting for a great se deal to fall into my lap, but my 12a collection just keeps growing..

Fungus Mungus

iTrader: (9)

@dougingraham:

I've done LEDs in my Civic and didn't like them. Too many hot spots and poor overall illumination. I went back to incandescent bulbs and I was happier. That said, and LED may work fine in that particular application (the climate control). However, I'm not willing to wait a week to sort this all out.

Today, I found the bulbs I needed at Autozone and replaced the the 3 climate control bulbs (the fan and temp switches, as well as the display). I also replaced the two bulbs in the storage bin areas. I put the dash back together and I now have a dash that fully illuminates. Unfortunately, my clock quit working after I put the center console back together. Not sure why. I guess I'll be looking for a replacement. But it does light up.

fm

WANKfactor

iTrader: (1)

^ yep iv done leds there, and like you say you get a hot spot and poor over-all illumination. You need to use inverted leds that have an upside down cone shape at the top. I couldn't get those so I inverted normal ones by grinding the top flat and then drilling the inverted cone shape into them. they work well, but the colour isn't 100%, but then just the fact that they don't give off any heat and draw stuff-all current makes them worth it.

j9fd3s

iTrader: (3)

lmao, not it isn't supposed to rain.

Cookboy

iTrader: (10)

Drove it, and decided that at some point in the next 500 miles the wearing in of the short shifter I installed 3 days ago will meet my getting used to it. And that will be a happy meeting.

Redliner223

iTrader: (6)

I installed a subwoofer in the corolla finished that up at 3 in the morning. -_-
I might get to my mazda projects later this week.

Siraniko

iTrader: (13)

after i washed this 30 yr old gslse, it is so darn straight, no dent under neath and the orig paint stripes and rubber strips/molding around the wheel wells are still in tact. will clay bar and buff the orig white paint. rootbeer brown interior is complete in good condition.