Wednesday November 9, 2016 Guerneville CA.
Headed out to do some shopping
I needed to do some shopping today and I wanted to drive the van around a bit to reset it’s computers learned program so I drove it to Santa Rosa to shop.
I bought two new headlights as one of the old ones had water in it and they were just looking old and beat up and I didn’t realize just how bad they were until I installed the new ones.
It’s hard to find food that is corn free
I went to Costco to try and get some corn free food. I tried my best, but getting corn free food just isn’t that easy as the stuff is in most everything and not labeled well at all even though I read all the label ingredients on everything I buy every time I buy, but there just isn’t any guarantee.
Tried to do some visiting
I got done shopping early so I drove over to visit my friend Marty, but no one was home, so I headed on towards home and stopped at Steve’s as it was on the way, but I couldn’t raise anyone there either so I continued on home. He has an old van like mine and has been doing some repairs on a rusty holy roof. Marty’s blog page
Installing the new headlights
After unloading the groceries and getting into some of the goody type stuff and then a nap, I went outside to have a look at installing the van’s new headlights.
It’s a fairly easy job, so I took the old ones out.
And I installed the new lights, which were brighter than I expected. The old ones were pretty beat up and not as bright as these new ones.
The headlight adjusters are just too old
However, the passenger side adjusters didn’t seem to be working too good and I couldn’t aim the light very well when I tried to adjust the lights aim. I knew I’d have to take that light apart and do some adjustment work on it. While I was sitting there thinking about doing that, the cat came by for a visit.
Eventually the cat took off, so I took the passenger headlight fixture apart to check it out to see what I could do to make it work better.
I tried to make it work
The adjustment screws were adjusted all the way down, so I needed to build up the ribs on the adjuster panel to give the screws more room to adjust.
I got my epoxy putty out and mixed up a small batch and applied it to the two lower ribs which you can see below. This makes the ribs higher so there is more room on the adjustment screws to adjust.
The light fixtures really needs new fixtures, so I might try and find some, but this will have to work for now.
Adjusted the lights
I put it back together as it was just starting to get dark and adjusted the lights as best I could for now.
I’ll go out and check the adjustment later in the dark as the beams will be easier to see
The van’s idle problem is better
Oh, the van’s rough idle problem seems to be much better since I increased the engine’s timing to 12 degrees BTC from 8 degrees.
I’ll need to do more work on the headlight adjusters
I just went outside to test the new headlight adjustments out and I can see I need to fix the headlight adjusters somehow as they are not holding the headlights where they need to be and are slipping on the screw threads, so I’ll have to do something about that.
That was my day.