Well, after my "successes" with the car last year, my plan to work on it this year is a fairly mild one.
1. Fix the headlights
2. Put gauges in the car
3. Rear end swap/gear something
4. Make the Windows great again!
The headlights, I already I knew i wanted to do an LED upgrade. I had seen seen it done at car shows and loved it. Plus, something was wrong with my headlight harness I made a few years ago.
These are the headlights I went with. Was debating on getting ones with halo rings (Was afraid they be to rice). But saw some others so figured, WTH. Plus, at $100 shipped...
Now the fun part was fixing my harness. When I built it, I wanted the outside lights to work when the brights were turned on. And I had it doing that, but when it was on low, it caused some sort of cross and the Highs would be just bearly on. This in turn, caused them to burn out.
So for Christmas, I got a new harness, but hated it. It wanted you to drill holes and ground each H4 plug. Plus, when I built my harness, I had it all setup on the driver side and this new harness would use the passenger side. So I used it as a guide to fix mine. Low and behold it was setup simple, low turned on low, and high turned on high. Novel idea.... This is actually fine with the new LED lights. Only thing, is low will turn on all 4 and so will high. For now, this is how I am going to run it. Might change it later (Doubt it)
I stripped down my harness and I got to tell you, I have no idea how it even worked, I had everything messed up. So started rewiring it based on the other harness.
So I get this damn thing complety done and realize, I forgot to run wires for the LED Halos. I don't know yet how i am going to use them, but i sure as shit did'nt want to go back and add the wires later. I take all the splitloom and tape back off and add the wires. now get ready for this. I'm like 6 hours in working on this thing now. I get it all in place and plug in a light and... NOTHING. WTF?! So I make a jumper plug and and test the light directly and they are fine. Hmmm what is wrong. Yep, harness was wrong again!! I got the ground and the high mixed up. Like FML, time to take it all apart again for the 3rd time and fix. Had to get new H4 plugs for the center as the wires were now to short.
The headlight fit pretty well in the stock buckets, but there is a "vent" that just would'nt allow it to seat. So used a holesaw, figured that would be the best looking cut i could make in it. Never going to see it, just hate doing stuff like this.
Old setup
Test fitting one of the lights after modifing that bucket.
This is as far as I have got with the headlights. New H4 plugs should come today. then I can get back and modifing the headlight buckets.
Next was the cluster. Since I have owned the car, not a single gauge has worked. I have some basic eBay gauges in now, but they look kind of jank. I had plans to put something in it as I was not interested in restoring the old gauges. Everything I looked at was from 800-1000$. Kind of a hard pill for me to swallow.
Was cruising around Ebay and saw the Intellitronix brand was on sale for $400 with a GPS receiver. Now, this is not my first choice, but its made in Ohio and its only $400 to have a full set of working gauges. I could'nt pass it up.
Just got started tearing down the old cluster and getting this setup. Was almost done in getting the cluster seated when I found the lens panel is missing a hole, so going to have to call them Monday and get that sorted out.
1. Fix the headlights
2. Put gauges in the car
3. Rear end swap/gear something
4. Make the Windows great again!
The headlights, I already I knew i wanted to do an LED upgrade. I had seen seen it done at car shows and loved it. Plus, something was wrong with my headlight harness I made a few years ago.
These are the headlights I went with. Was debating on getting ones with halo rings (Was afraid they be to rice). But saw some others so figured, WTH. Plus, at $100 shipped...
Now the fun part was fixing my harness. When I built it, I wanted the outside lights to work when the brights were turned on. And I had it doing that, but when it was on low, it caused some sort of cross and the Highs would be just bearly on. This in turn, caused them to burn out.
So for Christmas, I got a new harness, but hated it. It wanted you to drill holes and ground each H4 plug. Plus, when I built my harness, I had it all setup on the driver side and this new harness would use the passenger side. So I used it as a guide to fix mine. Low and behold it was setup simple, low turned on low, and high turned on high. Novel idea.... This is actually fine with the new LED lights. Only thing, is low will turn on all 4 and so will high. For now, this is how I am going to run it. Might change it later (Doubt it)
I stripped down my harness and I got to tell you, I have no idea how it even worked, I had everything messed up. So started rewiring it based on the other harness.
So I get this damn thing complety done and realize, I forgot to run wires for the LED Halos. I don't know yet how i am going to use them, but i sure as shit did'nt want to go back and add the wires later. I take all the splitloom and tape back off and add the wires. now get ready for this. I'm like 6 hours in working on this thing now. I get it all in place and plug in a light and... NOTHING. WTF?! So I make a jumper plug and and test the light directly and they are fine. Hmmm what is wrong. Yep, harness was wrong again!! I got the ground and the high mixed up. Like FML, time to take it all apart again for the 3rd time and fix. Had to get new H4 plugs for the center as the wires were now to short.
The headlight fit pretty well in the stock buckets, but there is a "vent" that just would'nt allow it to seat. So used a holesaw, figured that would be the best looking cut i could make in it. Never going to see it, just hate doing stuff like this.
Old setup
Test fitting one of the lights after modifing that bucket.
This is as far as I have got with the headlights. New H4 plugs should come today. then I can get back and modifing the headlight buckets.
Next was the cluster. Since I have owned the car, not a single gauge has worked. I have some basic eBay gauges in now, but they look kind of jank. I had plans to put something in it as I was not interested in restoring the old gauges. Everything I looked at was from 800-1000$. Kind of a hard pill for me to swallow.
Was cruising around Ebay and saw the Intellitronix brand was on sale for $400 with a GPS receiver. Now, this is not my first choice, but its made in Ohio and its only $400 to have a full set of working gauges. I could'nt pass it up.
Just got started tearing down the old cluster and getting this setup. Was almost done in getting the cluster seated when I found the lens panel is missing a hole, so going to have to call them Monday and get that sorted out.