My 1989 Crown Victoria.

[slack]

Take the trim piece off the hood next time. Two screws if I remember. And wait a good few weeks before reinstalling it after your next paint adventure.

What sort of pattern did the spray cans have? Conical or fan?

I wouldn't even attempt to spray an item as large as that with a conical nozzle, though I am very confident a decent result can be obtained through a spray can with a fan pattern.

I have been painting for many years now (novice spray can painting that is) and I am very good with the spray can, though there are times where my paint jobs (again we are talking little things here) just don't turn out so well.

My main concern always is the prep, and cleaning the piece thoroughly before spraying with wax and grease remover and tac ragging everything. With real urethane paint I tac between coats. Form and overlap are very important as well. The only way to get a very nice results from these "spray bombs" are to walk on thin ice with them. You have to get it very wet and heavy on there but in a controlled overlapped manner otherwise your finish will be blotchy or have stripes in it.

I think you will do well with the spray gun. Practice a bit before committing. Also make sure you have a good water separator installed before the spray gun. You do not want any water contaminating the paint.

I'm not sure why I didn't take the trim off. I'll definitely do that next time so I don't have to worry about tape and missing any areas.

I'm pretty sure the nozzle was a fan pattern... how it actually came out seemed less directed and more circular spray pattern. I think if I had a decent amount more paint it would have came out "okay" but still not how I would like it. Someone who knows what they're doing with a spray can would probably have better results. lol.

I'm banking on the spray gun. It has to work. At the very least it'll be better. I picked up a filter/dryer and regulator when I picked up the gun. Right now I'm not sure how fine of mesh I should get for the paint strainers. Any ideas?

There should be time to get some practice in before the paint gets here. I think last time it took about 10 days after ordering to come to the house.

Thanks for the tips!

[87gtVIC]

Can't help on the strainers. Are there really that many sizes? I'd say that if there is minimal flake (if there are even any in your color) I would use as fine a strainer as you could find.

[slack]

There were two different sizes last time I was at the store (I don't remember the exact sizes) but one was twice as fine of mesh as the other. I'm thinking I'll just go with the finest and do a test run with that when I get the paint before I try it on the car. Worst case, I guess I just go back and get the other strainer size.

[porschpow]

sO, YOU'RE TELLING ME there shold be a vacuum on the red line going to the manifold and no vacuum going on the green line right?

Just did a quick search and found the vacuum diagram Sly posted from his 88 which should be the same...



It looks to me that the red comes from the manifold to the EVR and then it's green from the EVR to the EGR? I'm pretty sure where the red line trees before the EVR is what I bypassed.

[sly]

at idle... yes. There may be a little pulse on the green line, but not enough to pull the EGR open.

[slack]

Yeah right now I have a little pulse at idle on the egr vacuum line.

Ordered more paint to finish the unfinished parts as well as some led dash lights and the energy suspension control arm bushing kit finally. They all should be coming this week. I'm hoping to get all done but the bushings this week.

[slack]

LED dash swap part 1

LEDs came in the mail today. They were cheap and figured they couldn't be much worse than what I have going on now.

Here's what it currently looks like more or less. (Camera actually makes it look darker than it really is... but it's by no means good)

And the heat controls:


LED packages! The guy sent me more than I ordered. Hopefully that's not just a sign that they know they're prone to fail. I don't see any resistors on the board for the LEDs but I guess that's what you get when you buy cheap.


Here's closes up of one of the LEDs. It's the 5 way type with the 5050 SMD LEDs.


Hopefully tomorrow I'll get a chance to install them. At the very least, I'm hoping they're at least a little brighter than what I have going on now.

[BlackVic_P71]

Are you doing the warning lights in the cluster too? Wasn't sure if that would work or if these cars are just old and they would.


Sent from the crapper

[slack]

I'm going to check the idea out.

The only one I've read concerns about so far is the alternator light. I believe it has something to do with the resistance of the bulb being part of the charging circuit.

My "engine light of death" has basically been replaced by gauges now so I don't have to worry about that one. The only other ones I have to worry about are "check engine", "seat belts" and "Low fuel". If any of those don't work right with the LEDs, nothing will blow up on me. (Though I am going to check them after I put the bulbs in). Any ones that don't work I can leave regular bulbs. Those aren't too dim. It's mostly the backing light that's killing me.

[sly]

only the low fuel light in that last will be interesting.

[BlackVic_P71]

Yeah, I've heard that the battery light is part of the circuit, like aibag lights on newer cars. I'll see how yours turns out, I have all the bulbs to convert if I desire later.


Sent from the crapper

[slack]

Dash LED lights continued

I'm going to try to get the test run in by the end of today so I can let you guys know how it goes.

I tested the LEDs at work and they sure are bright. Hopefully they're not too bright at night.

White:


Green:

[sly]

the ones I get off www.superbrightLEDs.com actually dim with the dimmer... YMMV.

[87gtVIC]

The ones I purchased years ago dim as well. They were great quality. I think I paid around 6 each.

[slack]

Dash LED lights finished! (...for now)

The ones I got are china crap that dim very very little. They were maybe $1.50 each. lol I bought them as basically a test to see if the LED lighting is what I want to keep. Well, it's all in and done and I have to say, I do like it! Maybe I'll buy another four green LEDs that I can properly dim and another "better" white for the heater controls. (Cheap LEDs in the blue spectrum instead of actually white).

Here's some pics of the installation and the final result.

First, trim has to come off. It's a bunch of philips screws to get the trim off. The speedometer is held in by four 7mm (ish) or torq screws.


Originally, I was going to remove the dash from the car, insert the new lights, and reinstall. I ran into two issues. First, the speedo cable is a bitch to get off though it is possible to get to it from behind the cluster and not from snaking from underneath and also I found this when going to disconnect the shift linkage indicator:


Apparently it broke in the past with one of the past owners and now it's just zip tied together. I didn't want to mess with that can of worms to get the dash out. (Take the zip tie off and then hope I can piece it back together once I remove the screw from it).

So with having to keep the dash in the car, I was able to replace the lights without issue. It was more of just a pain snaking my arm behind it to get to the bulbs. Thankfully, I was able to remove the filter caps through the face of the speedometer without having to completely disassemble it. Three of them come out easy, it's the one by the shift indicator that's a bit scary when you're fishing it out. (You have to pry up a little on the face of the speedometer and hope it's not so brittle it snaps) To get the face off it was something like a 5mm or so socket.


After all was said and done. First test with all the LEDs installed.


It looks like my Seat Belt light doesn't work at all. I'm guessing there's something messed up in the wiring. The bulb checks out okay.

The low fuel light I kept a regular light bulb. It didn't like the LED at all. At first, it seemed okay but would fade quicker and quicker until the point it wouldn't even do a bulb test when starting the car. I switched it back to the regular bulb in the end.

The other amber light, the check engine light, I ended up using a white LED behind because the amber LED was actually dimmer than the regular bulb when put behind it.

Later at night I was able to see how it really looked in the dark. I threw a "white" LED in the glove box too for the heck of it.


Heater controls came out very blue for my tastes. I think I might have to pull it and just make sure I didn't put a blue LED back there on accident. Worst case, a higher quality LED will be closer to white than the cheap white LEDs. I'm also thinking of trying my extra amber LED and see how that looks behind it.


And here's some more pics of the finished dash! It's waaaaaaaaaaay brighter than it was and the blinker is crazy bright! My crappy phone doesn't do these lights justice. They're almost too bright actually.