Thursday, October 16, 2008

bright and shiny

Tyra got buffed last weekend! The paint has been neglected for some time (ie since I bought her), for several reasons. I didn't want to mess with the resprayed side, and the weather has been ordinary so there's no point washing her when it's about to rain again. But now that the weather is more reliable I decided to spend a few Sunday hours with the products and the random orbital buffer. Came up pretty well, but still a few scratches that won't buff out without more effort.

I even (shock horror!) gave the interior and soft top a nice coat of 303 Aerospace Protectant - the best plastic rejuvenator I've used - nice and black but not greasy if you use sparingly.

This photo tells me just how much she needs lowering though...

If you're observant you'll notice the side indicators are now tinted, in addition to the corner reflectors done previously. Very tidy, I think. I'm not keen on reducing light output, but it looks so much better I think, and much cheaper than buying the clear side indicators.

If you're super observant, you'll spot the centre brake light is also darker, but I'm not happy with the tinting job done there.

I only did the brake light tinting after making the light output brighter to compensate - 10 high intensity LEDs were installed in the internal diffraction lens. A fairly straightforward job to crack it open and play with.

For the interested, the LEDs are 10mm, 10000 millicandela red ones, and the resistors are 220 ohm, 1 watt. Parts from Jaycar.
DIY wiring.

I also had a couple of new tyres fitted on the left side to replace the flatspotted ones. Amazing how much nicer it is to drive a car with round tyres!