They are more efficient and they do run cooler. The difference is that a tungsten filament that runs at several thousand degrees doesn't care if you get rid of the heat and a doped piece of silicon half the size of your little fingernail cares a lot. The more heat you can get rid of the longer they will last. The whole back of the Trucklite bulb housing is a heat sink.

One of the downsides of LEDs as headlights in winter environments is that they don't melt off the snow and ice that hits them.

 

I used the rb header from my car, to outline the flange and used an exhaust gasket to make the exhaust ports

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Thanks, Doug; I'm still finding the $300+ too much to bite just yet. I'd love to have the upgrade but as little as I drive the car (& 99% of that in the city) I've got other things I could do with the money.

Once they get to around $100 a bulb, I might look again.

 

Doug, what LEDs did you go with for the brake lights? I have been looking at 1157 bulbs from here to china and have not found anything that looks to perform as I would want brake lights to perform for anything less than 40 a pair. Did you find a better value or have any recommendations?

DD, I started to do the typical H4 to HID conversion, but what drove me to change my mind and go forward with the LEDs instead is the full DOT compliance. Is it needed? Probably not. But it is a warm fuzzy blanket of legality that pushed me over the edge and allowed me to spend the money. I look at it like this. I will probably be selling the SakeBomb Garage HID projectors that I bought for my FD project and never installed for twice what I have in these so they are already paid for.

 

SSR/Hoosier fitting today. More sanding got done too.

The Hoosiers fit great...no clearance problems in the front or back as far as the tires go. However, the 13" SSR MkIIIs didn't play well with the GSL-SE calipers. Had to grind. And grind. And grind some more. Both fronts and rears are running 1/4" spacers this time, but I'll be pulling out the spacer on the front and running a 1/8" spacer to bring the wheel in some. The rears took a 1/8" spacer and some grinding. It sticks out from the flares some but I don't mind at all. I'd rather have more meat on the ground than worry about a "hot wheels" look. I may switch the lower offset wheel on the front with the rear and see if I like that any better.

I'll be dropping the car by almost 2" and expect no rubbing issues.

fm

 

Looks awesome fm. I'm loving the 13's on a 1st gen...but that may have to do with them being those SSR's.

 

today being 1:30 am when I finished : removed the gutted cat and glasspack silencer (lol) and replaced with a chambered muffler. nothing special, just a spare I had floating around the garage. much quieter! wrapped the header in DEI stuff, the nicer of the wraps for high heat.

found the final solution to my flooding nikki. damned charcoal canister was clogged, and when I removed it, damn thing felt about 10 lbs. SO, now I can adjust float levels and get to driving this thing more. going to replace door and hatch rubber soon, as well as rewrap the upper door panel in new material. will also be relaying the fuel pump . good times!

 

I feel that one. Chased it for a long time - harder to fix on an SA.

 

So removing the charcoal canister is ok on these cars? I think mines clogged cuz fuel drips out of the line going from it to the engine

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That's not good. Definitely replace that ASAP. That fuel is dripping right over the exhaust.

 

No its leaking at the connection at the motor, so its draining fuel into the motor, its the large hose from the cannister, connects to a hardline then connects to the motor, right under the oil fill tube hose connection

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My info is about a year old now so let me check to see if the prices have changed.

No obvious changes. What I used is Recommended 1157 brake light replacement.

You want to select the red version of it and you will want to deactivate the Lamp Check relay. I have a thread where I show how to do this. It is easy to reverse if you put regular bulbs back in the car. Unfortunately these are $20 a bulb and thus do not make your cheaper than $40 per pair value proposition.

 

And what I did to my FB today was I drove the GSL-EV to work. When I went to lunch it was at a restaurant that is part of a filling station. I pulled in and as soon as I got out a gal came running over from the pumps asking me how long I had my FB and if I wanted to sell it. I explained that this car had been converted to plug in electric and I was not interested in selling it but that I did have another car that I had considered selling. I told her it was outside the house and she could go take a look and that I would be home at about 5:30. She said she had to go out of town on business but would be ok if she gave my number to her sister. I said sure. We left it at that and I went inside to have lunch. About 10 minutes later I got a call from her sister wanting to set up a time when she could test drive it. I said sometime after 5:30 I would be there and if she wanted she could come by earlier to look at it. She then told me you don't understand. We are both here right now looking at it.

The back story appears to be that this will be a birthday gift for their father who is about to turn 75 and had an FB when they were girls. He gave each of them a FB when they went off to college. So this is clearly one of those situations where they all three loved their FB's and let them go only to regret it later.

I am not strongly motivated to sell the car but if they give me my asking price I will be ok with it. If this goes through it will be the easiest car sale I ever had. I didn't even have to advertise it. I will post an update later.

 

Those gals have a great dad.

 

That is exactly what I was thinking.

 

Yeah, from everything I was seeing, the $20 a bulb price range seemed to be where the quality was acceptable. Did you use a similar bulb for your front turn signal? If so, how did the flasher relay work with it? If not, did you use a CAN/Load type?

I'm probably going to LED the gauge cluster. I might just skip putting the lamp check bulb. Empty socket ftw.

 

I used the amber version of this bulb for the front turn signals. The flasher relay does do the fast flash without a load resistor across the turn signal connection. I did look at modifying the so called computer and it could be done there but there is almost no downside to adding the load resistors. Lets just say that it is a lot easier to add the load resistor than it is to modify the computer. There is no traditional flasher relay in the 84 and 85 FB's (this could be different for other model years). The flasher timing and current detection for the turn signals is part of the cpu module under the dash. The load resistor only functions when the turn signal portion of the LED bulb is on and doesn't do anything when the bulb is operating as a driving light. So it is a low duty cycle load (at least if you aren't a geezer and forget to turn off your turn signal for hours.)

When you LED the instruments could you post some photos. I would go ahead and put in the STOP LAMP LED. Deactivating the Lamp Check function is just pulling out one wire from the connector that goes to the relay and taping it off. The reason I suggest this is because you may at some point want to put back in regular bulbs if you sell the vehicle. Or in some places the car would fail an inspection if that bulb does not light up when you turn on the key. The small price of adding in that bulb could save a lot of grief later on.

 

As a followup to my posting yesterday, I let her test drive the car and she wants to buy it. I made up a list of all the stuff I have done to it during the two years I have had it.

* Replaced the power antenna rod and got it working again.
* Replaced the shocks and struts all around.
* Inspected and repacked the front wheel bearings.
* Inspected the pads and calipers all around. The rear pads have plenty of life but will occasionally howl if braking and turning at the same time.
* Replaced the brake flex lines with stainless steel.
* Replaced the fuel filter.
* Replaced the air filter.
* Replaced the spark plugs.
* Replaced the belts.
* Flushed the cooling system and filled with fresh coolant.
* Replaced the radiator cap.
* Replaced the clutch master cylinder.
* Replaced the battery.
* Replaced the leaking lines to the oil cooler with stainless steel.
* Replaced the leaking oil cooler with an OEM oil cooler.
* Changed the transmission lube.
* Changed the differential lube.
* Replaced the stripped rear wiper arm.
* Replaced the brake bulbs with brighter LED bulbs.
* Replaced the backup bulbs with much brighter LED bulbs.
* Replaced the left front spring to correct the tire touching the wheel well.
* Added two spacer plates to the left front strut tower to bring it up to the correct height.
* Replaced the door pull cup on the drivers side.
* Removed most of the after market car alarm wiring that was still in the car. There is still some stuff to be removed at the steering column.
* Removed the aftermarket stereo wiring mess that was left by a previous owner.
* Replaced the rotten rubber lower control links.
* Replaced the rotten tension rod bushings.
* Replaced the leaking pulsation dampner.
* Replaced the speakers with Alpines.
* Replaced the hatchback lift cylinders.
* Replaced the original muffler with the Racing Beat muffler off of the EV.
* Replaced the broken sun roof lift mechanism.
* Purchased but have not yet installed power steering from a parts car. This was a project for this fall.
* Drove it on a 4000 mile loop to the west coast in November of 2013. Showed the car at SevenStock.

We will close the deal on Friday evening. I am quite a lot more bummed out than I thought I would be. I guess I will have to look for another project car.

 

any writeup from the sunroof mech? I was cranking mine up or down in the dark and apparently went too far, broke it at the inside plastic where the splines are. might be able to superglue it back but it wont "suck" down into the car, just lay by gravity - bet it wont seal as well in the rain.

 

Got these in today from forum member winglebeast. Next to install them in the car.

 

I think I shall drive her and take pictures tonight.

 

Just got done with putting in the rear shocks, fronts in the morning after I got grab spring compressors.

 

The Japanese Classic Car Show in Long Beach ( Japanese Classic Car Show / JCCS 2014 ) decided to add a "Period Appropriate" costume contest to this year's show.

To enter, you had to dress in clothing appropriate to the year of your car & send in a picture.

So last night I broke open the seal on my "Only open in times of dementia or of the 80's return" box in my closet, too the Beastie down off her skates, and we went out photoshooting.

I won't inflict the actual shot sent for the contest on you all (is heinous) but here's a sample of the pics. All regalia is authentic from the 80's. Sadly, I'm not holding up as well as the gear is, 30 years on. Car's looking the best of the bunch, though.

 

I took one of mine apart and was not able to fix it. I tried several different kinds of adhesives and none of them adhered to that kind of plastic. Instead I got one off of a guy parting out a car from here on the forum for a very reasonable price. It was even the correct color. Black Dragon had these mechanisms a couple of years ago but I think the color selection was limited to black even then. I guess if you had to use the wrong color then black would be the color to use as it would not clash.

 

Unfortunately, the sunroof mechanism is just fragile and doesn't age well. You see a lot of broken ones out there. The elevating mechanism really should have been die-cast instead of plastic with metal inserts, but that would have cost a lot more and been heavier. Also would have needed lubrication. But it would have held up better over the years.