notes on Indicator/Driving Lights Conversion

[simple]

I modified my park & indicator lights today, to make the car more
visible during the day without needing to have the barn doors up.
Instructions, courtesy of The Illustrious Mr Fox, can be found on the
club website: http://www.mx5club.org.nz/maintenance/driving_lights/
and various other places (but it's simple enough that you don't need
to research every fact on the matter)

My 'driving lights' are a great deal more visible now - I'm very
pleased.


This is what I found when I modified my car:

The park lights I took out (little 5W bulbs) were well
blackened/silvered inside & probably not even managing to provide
their rated illumination. If one were too busy to do the full
procedure, even just putting new 5W bulbs in would probably make
things brighter.

The grey goo doesn't really seem to soften much - it mainly just
seems to let go when you warm it a bit. Maybe I needed more heat. I
used a heatshrink gun, which seemed to work pretty well.

The clear plastic lense is brittle - I guess 13 years of regular UV
exposure and general aging has taken its toll. I've got a vertical
crack in one of my lenses now. Happened when one end started to come
free, and it was all moving, but slowly, with a bit much force
applied. I should have applied a bit more heat to free it completely
rather than being stupid... Bugger. I used a thin line of silicone
on the inside to hopefully seal it up - will see how it goes.

The plastic clips holding things together are not too scary - not
like a lot of modern plastic things which are impossible to
disassemble without breaking lots of clips. Having said that, I now
have one broken clip on each indicator assembly. They're not
important.

The section of wiring which needs the wires swapped over is just a 6"
length of loom which plugs in just below the headlamps - if you pop
up the headlights you can see the connector. The left one will
unplug from the main loom and you'll find yourself with a 6 inch
piece of wiring in your hands - easier to work on then.

The right hand one is attached to the car and didn't want to come out
easily. The half of the connector which unplugs and comes free is
the half which is part of the main loom. Easier to work on it in
situ.

Currently recommended technique for amber bulb colouring (which
zorruno told me about, but hasn't yet documented on the webpage) is to
use Tamiya model paint and paint the bulb. I used Tamiya Color X-26
Clear Orange Enamel. Bought a 10ml bottle for $3.35 from Acorn
Models (381 Great North Rd, http://www.acornmodels.co.nz/)

One coat was just enough - two is better. I think three coats would
dim the light too much without improving the colour enough. Turps
(mineral turpentine) worked well to clean the brush. I let each coat
dry overnight, and after both coats were dry I baked it by powering
up the bulbs on a battery charger for an hour. Seemed like a good
idea at the time.

You can also buy Tamiya acrylic paint, but I thought enamel sounded
more like something for hot items. Just a guess though. It seems to
work. I reckon one bottle is good for at least 20 bulbs. If you
don't want to do that many, maybe you could paint your nails with it.

Not all model shops have Tamiya paint, so it may be worth phoning
before making a special trip to buy some (unless the road is a fun
one to drive). Humbrol is another common model paint brand, but I
don't know if they have a comparable Clear Orange paint or not. They
might have something better - are you prepared to risk the enormous
price of paint & bulbs on this? Could be worth a try.

As I reassembled one of the small bulbholders back into the housing,
a little tab broke off it (off the bulbholder) - I guess it's
suffering from old age & brittleness too. Not sure yet if I'll need
to replace it.

All told, today's efforts took me 2.5hrs, including crack siliconing
& all tidy up afterward. Bulb painting was quick, but spread over a
couple of days.


Karl.