Perpetual Ruminations

Sunday

Day sixteen for the month, past halfway now and going good. I'm doing the March challenge in 750 Words, which requires seven hundred and fifty words be written every day of the month. I have fifteen days left and the challenge is done. I may still write my journal entry in here and then copy it over to WdC after, but I'm not sure. It is nice writing in here, no distractions, just lots of white. Of course, there are no tools either, just lots of white.

I redid the dash lights in the Jimmy this afternoon instead of getting in here and getting this done. The weather may turn nasty tomorrow night and I wanted to make sure I had lights to see the dashboard again, just in case. What happened is the lights for the instruments have burned out with age. I purchased new lamps for them, but then discovered that it is a major job to change them out. Not only does it require me to disassemble  the dash but it also requires me to unhook and remove the thermostat and fan controls.

This could be a problem, since there is barely enough room to get a needle nose pliers in to unhook the connectors and the cable assembly. Then, there is also a vacuum assembly that controls where the air will go, to the defrosters, the heater, or the vents. Since the vehicle is old, I know the components are going to be weakened with age and brittle from time. In the process of unhooking things, there is a great probability of breaking lines, cables and even wires. since there is little room to work.

Therefore, I elected not to risk making more work and greater expense for myself by removing these components and ripping the entire dash apart. Instead, I replaced the few lamps I could gain access too without taking any of the dash apart, except for the items I could easily get at. This left me with only one light in the actual instrument cluster, which is not enough to even read the speedometer. to overcome this, I installed a secondary lighting system, that works off of the cigarette lighter.

The item has two LED lights that I mounted on each side of the exterior instrument cluster. They give off a bright blue glow when turned on, and they provided enough light to see the cluster pretty good. Only, one of the LED's quit working. It's the one on the right, that lit up the gas gauge, the ammeter, and the thermostat. In addition, it makes reading the speedometer more difficult, too.

So, today I direct wired one of the LED's in to the light switch, so it comes on with the lights. It's on the left and shows the oil pressure and lights up the speedometer just enough to read it. I then installed a second set of these same lights on the right side of the display and in the center of the display. These are not direct wired, but on a switch unit that plugs into the cigarette lighter. They are going to provide more than enough light to see all the instruments very well. Of course, if it's hard on the eyes driving with all the lights on, I can also turn these two off and still have enough light from the one that's wired right in.

These will do nicely until I get the chance to purchase a better lighting system to install. I want to install a similar setup, but I want all the lights to be directly wired into the light control so that I can brighten or dim them with the same control used for the original instrument lights. But, I will have to look and see what kind of lighting I can find that is small, not too bright, and will provide the illumination I need.

After I finished, I spent a little bit of time on the computer, but did not have time enough to write in here. Rhonda called shortly after, and then I started dinner, and she was soon home to assist. We had a nice dinner, watched a little Netflix, then enjoyed some ice cream and watched another show. Now, I'm finishing up in here and then it's off to bed, since I have to be up at three again. Tomorrow is the last day before I get two days off, weather cooperating. Hopefully we don't get a big dumping of snow on top of ice and I get to enjoy two days off again this week.

For now, it's a quick check on the weather, then bed.