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I'm very fortunate to have friends who help keep Wilson alive. His cv joint boot was in need of replacement... and luckily had another cv I was able to take a boot from.
Really looking forward to installing mud flaps. The rocks hit hard sometimes... totally beating my nice stainless exhaust and control arms & shocks... not to mention the exterior. Look at this dent! Can you believe this car had a fresh paint job 2 years ago? Insane!!
Priority: Reliability. Fabbed up some lightweight cushion for under the engine oil pan... it's not much but it's something at least.
It was a fight to get out the door this weekend, I'm sure other know what that is like... is the car ready? Are the chores done?
But... we manage to get out the door. In Wilson's case we decided to tape the front fenders to protect the fresh paint, rather than avoid the glaring fact that I don't have mudflaps at this time.
So with tape and fresh gummy winter tires & an LSD transmission in the back, the tank was filled & the oil topped up.
We turned right versus left. Foothills but not towards the mountains.
Found some very very beautiful country.
Wilson found a friend!
On the way home, decided to weigh Wilson. WHAT!! I know he's been getting heavier with flip up lights and trunk carpet, quite a lot of tools & recovery equipment, just over half a tank and a spare tire, but GEEBUS - 2882 lbs. Then later I realized that's with me in it also. Hehe. Wheew!! Dodging bullets here people!
Frustrated with my existing *aux light* situation.
Stage Rallye cars can run big lights & lots of them.
However, my car is street legal and has to fall within the Alberta & B.C. provinces' on hiway rules.
My recent eye lasik surgery has my night vision suffering... so it looks like I may not be able to attend the "thru the night" 650 km rallye. That's ok. But maybe if I'm able to build a road legal aux light set up that works well... maybe it'll pan out. :/
Tonight I managed to get the rest of the light pod mounts built. Really stiff and light & functional using only four holes that were already in the car (but I did need to enlarge the holes for the threaded nut inserts).
Now for the electrical. When I built the relay harness for my high draw head lights I "over-built" them... so I hope I can piggy back from those circuits.
The fogs will always run with the low beams and the driving lights always run with hi beams. I used some yellow gel over the glass of the fogs.
A little more forming & perhaps a splash of paint in the future, but I'm behind schedule so that will have to wait.
After 2 attempts to make my flip ups work properly I ran outta time. So, inspired by Doug 951S and V2Rocket, I installed threaded nut inserts where the stops normally are. I was able to save weight but more importantly increase reliability with fixed lights (and it's reversible if ever I want to go back).
This photo doesn't represent the true brightness of the lights. There was 400 watts or lights happening last night. I'm very impressed with the function of the lights.
Although tired, last night I went driving between midnight & 2 am in order to simulate Saturday's night rally conditions. It was perfect conditions in the back roads. It was black and and a bit of rain and also fog. The headlights have VERY high performance bulbs and a heavy duty really harness and the aux lights are also quite bright.... but the other thing I tested last night was driving with my old prescription glasses but missing one lens.
This was at the suggestion from Lasik MD who zapped my eye. It was "monovision" surgery which means one eye is near sighted & the other is far sighted, which might prevent me from needing reading glasses when older. Its really hard to get used to and like I say, night driving is very difficult (I don't trust myself). Anyway, the 1 lens trick made all the difference!
So, after a friend volunteered to perform navigational duty and I have tested the car, we have the basic components for a rally team. And we will consult with Power tryp (aka D'Arcy for tips on how to run the time/speed/distance management for tomorrow night's rally). Thanks D'Arcy!
Here is the comms and navi glasses & driver's day time glasses.
I opted for the Mac Tools LED safety eyelights (# fl96712) and the Snap On safety glasses with built in hearing protection (# glass80byear) and Motorola Talkabout 2 way radios (# 53725) for our 11 hours of driving.
09-18-2016, 11:30 PM
I'm very impressed with the function of the lights.
