Had to run to the hardware store to pick up some stuff for the Capri, so I took the Interceptor, which hadn't been out in a while. It wasn't much of a ride, but at least I put some electrons in the battery and got to listen to that wonderful V4 soundtrack.
Took the NA to a local shop for alignment this morning. This is the shop I should have taken the NC to.... Everything went well, and they were clearly familiar with doing performance/track alignments.
I was disappointed to see that I apparently did a crap job aligning the car with the hub stands. Now that I have good numbers, I need to put it back on the hub stands and see what I it looks like... I think that I probably didn't have the suspension fully settled. Anyway, looking forward to driving the car again... maybe there's been a reason that I've been feeling it was lacking grip?
Before
After
Today I tackled one of the several RV projects I have planned while we're in-between trips.
I've never been impressed with the headlight performance on our motorhome, but it hadn't been a priority since we don't drive it a lot at night, and I hadn't had the time to dig into it. The coach uses headlights from an early 2000s Lincoln LS, and I had initially thought it had HIDs. I knew I was planning on replacing the badly hazed housings, so I hadn't dug into it that deeply.
On our last trip, I got to looking at the lights, and realized it had aftermarket LED bulbs. That explained why the pattern was so poor, and there was no discernible difference between high and low beams. We also dealt with significant rain, and I discovered the fog light performance was pretty poor as well. Just looking at the beam pattern it was apparent that driving beams had been installed as fog beams, and being mounted so low to the ground, they were utterly useless.
When we got home, I started ordering parts: new headlight housings from Headlight Depot, Phillips Silverstar Ultra bulbs and a set of Hella fogs to replace the Hella driving beams. Surprisingly, all the parts were pretty reasonable with everything coming in under $450.
I decided to tackle the fog lights first, and discovered even high-end RVs tend to be put together like crap. The fogs were bolted to a piece of sheet metal that was screwed into plywood with three wood screws. The plywood was glassed into the front exterior of the motorhome.
Once on the bench, the difference in lenses for the fogs and drivers is pretty clear. I flipped the fog assemblies in the housing for pendant mounting, spliced on the harness connections from the old lights, and mounted them on the coach.
I thought the fog light mounting was bad, but the headlights were even worse... wood screws through the housing tabs into plywood... not even flush mounted.
I think if I saw something like that on a new $450k coach, I'd be pretty upset. At least we bought it after 20 years of depreciation...
Once on the bench, the difference is clear (to use a bad pun).
Garbage LED 'bulbs':
Done
Still need to aim everything, which will have to wait for a convenient time after dark. I've had really good results with the Phillips bulbs in the past, so I'm hoping they work well here. This is phase 1 of improving the lighting. Phase 2 will be some actual driving beams, but I will need to do some fabrication to mount those.
is this a Morgan?
I am sure you can exceed OEM work on the driving lights.
In reply to DrMikeCSI :
The way the plywood and fiberglass is intermixed says "TVR" to me. Morgan has mostly bypassed fiberglass.
Wow, that's something I wouldn't expect to see on a $10k economy car, let alone something as expensive as a motor coach
In reply to docwyte :
Yup, pretty pathetic.
The Touring went up on the lift today so I could deal with a leaking A/C compressor.
I noticed a couple of drips earlier in the summer, but I believe the leak is just the front bearing/seal as A/C performance hasn't been affected. Recently the leak has become worse. The bright green is from some kind of dye in the oil.
The main goal for the day was to identify the compressor (out of two possibilities), so I can research solutions. I also pulled the A/C belt to minimize any further issues until I can get it repaired/replaced. At least the weather has cooled off enough to not need the A/C for a few months.
Even if I can find a bearing/seal, I don't think I can replace it on the car, which means evacuating/refilling the system. After talking to a shop I trust, they don't want to repair, they want to replace with a new compressor (with a warranty). Now that I have the compressor identified, I'll talk to them about prices...
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