Moving

Since my mom got sick with cancer in March, I have not been able to do many things with my cars.
I hardly have any news to put on this blog.

I've decided to include any future posts about my cars into my other blog here, http://juliesjournalpages.blogspot.com/
It's more about my artwork, but I update more often

Headlight Motor - Red Car (Part 1)

Firebirds from 1982 to 1992 have headlights that flip up.
It looks cool but after awhile the gears and bushings in the motor wear out.
It is somewhat tricky, but the usual fix is taking the motor apart and replacing the plastic bushings.
Recently both my 1992 firebirds needed this repair.
Today I took the red car in to get it fixed.
Blue arrow is  headlight motor. It has a knob you can turn to raise the headlight manually.

Both cars have the problem in the left side headlight motor.
(The left and right side motors come apart in different ways.
The right side motor is supposed to be easier because you don't have to take it all apart.)

First I had to remove the black plastic cowl around the headlight. 4 small screws.


Next I had to unscrew the bolts to remove the whole headlight assembly. (Blue arrows=bolts)

Here is the car with the whole headlight assembly, gone:
You can see the plugs where it gets its power from the car (left side of picture)
and the plug that goes into the back of the headlight bulb (right/middle.)

Actually at this point, my friend Don the mechanic took over taking apart the headlight motor.

I thought it would be simple. I've seen it done before.
But, in the end it was more complicated than I thought.
That's why I've been taking notes.

Tomorrow I will put up the rest of the pictures...

Speedometer

Last month I needed to replace/fix the speedometer cluster in the green car.
Luckily I had a spare one from the old green car that got parted out.

I went to Don the mechanic's shop for supervision.
(Also, he knows exactly what size tool I needed for every thing. )

The first part is removing the black plastic bezel that goes over the front of all the gauges.

To remove the bezel and eventually the gauge cluster, it is also necessary to drop down the steering column.( Blue Line.)
First the knee bolster needs to come out. (Not shown in any of the pictures)
It is a padded panel that covers all the wiring under the dash board.
There is also a metal bracket that holds the pad away from the steering column.
Under the bracket is a second bracket that holds up the steering column.
By loosening the bolts marked in red, you can lower (and I guess remove the whole steering column for other kinds of repairs.)

(This is looking up under the steering wheel:)

Here the black plastic bezel is off of the instrument panel, and the clear (brittle) plastic covering the gauges is visible:
Also you need to undo the small panel above the stereo, where the trunk release and fog lamp switch is. (Green)
The whole cluster will now slide out.

The back of the instrument cluster has a funky old green and gold circuit board:

Here is the individual unit for the speedometer, now out of the car:

Since my mom is sick and I can't get away for days at a time, I did half the work one week, drove around without a speedometer, and went back to finish the next week.

According to the guy at the speedometer repair place, it is not illegal to drive without a speedometer!

Not tomorrow either

Don is still working on a car and has another one in the wings.
So maybe next weekend I'll blog about the tune up.

The good news is: I don't have to get up early, until then!

Maybe tomorrow.

I have to do something, some day!

Tune-up on Green car

The tune-up is definitely going to happen some time next week...