March 12, 2007

• Van Update

  My trolling on craigslist paid off, at least a little bit.

  I found a guy who is parting out an '88 Vanagon, so I got ahold of the passenger-side headlight assembly. When I first got my van, the low-beam glass was cracked and had been rejoined with JB weld. I've been looking for a replacement all along. I also noticed the other day that the high-beam glass had been cracked, too. Both were filling up with water very slowly, with a little green line of scum on top. I should have taken a picture before I replaced it.

  But replace it I did. Nice and shiny and water-tight.

  And while I was in the mood to work on van stuff, I did another long-time-coming task: Cleaning gunk out of the turn signal lenses. They're constructed in such a way that Strange Organic Material will start collecting/growing in a groove around the sides, especially when you live in a temperate rainforest. This limits the angle of view of the lights, and looks kinda creepy. So I used a soda straw from the trash can in my van to poke around in that groove, and flushed it out with water. Doesn't look good as new, but certainly much better.

  Then it was time to work on the cabin lights, one of which crumbled as I took it out of the roof of the van. Brittle aged plastic. They're cheap, so I'll order some. Out of three, only one is really worth keeping.

  Which got me thinking about LEDs, which never burn out (for rational values of 'burn out'), as in this, linked from a wonderful page called 'modifications, hacks, and kludges. I'd love to be able to find a retailer that packages LEDs as drop-in replacements for incandescent dashboard instrument lights.

  L33T V4N4G0N H4KKUR!!1!!

  • 12:52 am
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