So, next on the list is the dash LEDs, specifically the front/rear fog switches, the dash light dimmer and headlamp leveller switches, the hazard and rear screen switches and the heater controls!

As mentioned above , I recently bought 3 packs of 4 T3 LEDSs in pink, I'm ultimately going for purple here to match the steering cowl highlighters and the door handle lights, I'm hoping the pink LED shining through the green tint in the switches will give me purple, or thereabouts

Had a first pop at it this afternoon/evening and these are the pictures of the results....

First up, the hazard and rear screen switches.....

Not bad in the rear screen switch, pretty good light output and its purple Sweet, theory confirmed

Hazard switch not so good, but to be honest I knew I'd need white for this one, I just though I'd see how the pink looked while I wait for the ordered white ones to arrive from Hong Kong

Gonna keep the heater selector LEDs stock for now, might change the front screen selector to purple eventually, the green ones can stay as is, since the theme is purple ang green

Next be the four switches under the clocks....

wouh, that's almost a bit creepy now - today i had a chat with a friend about purple leds in the dashboard but as this seems to be difficult, it ended up with "i'll stay with white".
never thought of it being that easy with just using pink leds
very nice job there!
are you also going to modify your clock display to purple? even if i stay with white now for buttons and heater controls etc, i'd love to have at least my clock display in purple.

looking forward to pics when the other lights/buttons are done

if you squint, really, REALLY hard, you can just about make out the front and rear fog switches, they're a bit brighter in the flesh, but not brilliant, at least I can make out what they are from where I sit To be fair, the stock incandescent bulbs aren't exactly bright!!

There was a photo of the leveller and fader, but it was just black, you can see them with the naked eye, but not with any real definition

Might have to break out the Snakeye to take a look inside the switches, see if I can spray some white/silver/chrome paint inside, see if that helps things

Cheers Nina, one of the reasons Ive never done the rest of my dash till now is because until recently you couldn't get LEDs to fit the switches, well a couple of years any way I've just been waiting for the right colours to become available with SMD LEDs The clock will stay green in keeping with the purple/green theme

Hm... have you already tried to wash off the green film? Roland aka "Blue Flame" on here did that a while ago on his dash buttons when he wanted to change to red colour. With nail polish remover, he removed the green tinting, then cut out a little piece of a red film he bought and put it inside behind the symbol, so now it's red. It's also not VERY bright either but he's also not using leds, only the standard bulbs as far as I know. maybe with the film and a bright white led you could archieve a better light output?
edit: or maybe if you just wash off the green tint it could maybe shine brighter anyway? oh well... but it would be pink then

Here's a drivers view of today's new look, firstly without steering cowl highlighters and then with them on...





...you might have noticed there is a blank space where the heater sliders and graphics should be, I did order enough bulbs to do these too, but I made a mistake and assumed they were T3s, they ain't, they're T5s, quite a bit bigger, in my defence, it's been MANY years since I last had the heater out currently searching for a supplier, the guy I've found on fleabay sells two types, both in pink, normal dome style LEDs with a concave top to focus more light in packs of 4 and an SMD version in single packs, I'm trying to find out if I have to pay separate postage on the SMDs

The stock bulbs are on, apart from the middle one, which I broke, but they're so dim!!!!

I might try removing the tint, I need a spare switch to practice on methinks

oh, but hey, at least you have enough T3 spare leds now.
i don't know if it's the same for me... euro postford dash, my heater control panel is different to yours, unfortunately but i also don't have a huge knowledge of LEDs and those things which makes everything which has to do with leds difficult for me

but yes, Blue Flames dash turned out pretty good i think, maybe he could get up a pic for you when he'll read this tomorrow.

i like this steering cowl highlighters thing you've done there, never saw this before

My heater is pre Ford Nina, your's is probably the same as the UK post Ford ones

Stick a pic up and I'll confirm that for you

In other news......



Looks something or something has done for one of my tribal indicator/side light units

a**e

Gonna need new ones now, still, at least it gives me a chance to revamp them and try some ideas I've been working on for some years

gutted

don't forget we can machine cut some new vinyl overlays for your lights

For what I'm planning chap, that's probably the way forward

What kind of prices are we looking at?

meanie friendly prices

Sweet sir, sweet

sorry to hear about your sidelight Andy, hope you can get it sorted quickly.



this how my post ford heater panel looks like:

i like the preford panel much more, shame i can't change it.

Woah that's totally not the same as a UK post ford Why you always gotta be different Nina?

UK Pre-ford:


UK Post-ford:

trust me, i'm not happy with that.
i also want those nice buttons, our postford one looks just ugly and cheap.

Actually Nina, I kinda like yours

Today, I swapped out the nearside CV joint, fairly straight forward, only screwed up once

Pics in the morning, its late and I want to watch Star Trek: Into Darkness

I also decided to test fit the lexus rear clusters, need to modify the indicator bulb holder because its in the way, to be fair I knew that already but I wanted to see for myself

What has everyone else done to get theirs to fit, pics please

Good work only screwing up once

For the lexus taillights - you know the fins on the back of the indicator bulb holder? The centre bit where the wire comes out sticks up past them - I took a hacksaw to it and chopped it down so it was level with the fins. If that makes sense

Makes sense to me chap Still gonna be a tight fit

Yep it's snug, but it fits

Right, muuuuuch later than I'd planned, here's the pics from yesterday's CV joint change, first time I've done serious maintenance since we moved into the new house I can report the conrete pad outside the garage doors is nie and flat and a breeze to jack on

Now I used squidy's 'Replacing CV joint - The Easy way!' thread in BA Guides as a reference as its a while since i've changed a CV, never hurts to refresh the memory in his thread he unbolts the hub from the ball joint rather than the strut as I do, in my opinion unbolting the ball joint is the more fiddly method, so in case anyone wants to do it the alternative way, I took the following....

Once the car is jacked, on stands and chocked at the rear, wheels removed I took a reference shot because I have adjustable camber bolts...



I removed the caliper and hung it from the spring using a butchers hook I had handy and removed the disc.

Next I popped off the hub nut with my 32mm socket and breaker bar then...

Historically my CV joints have usually been easy enough to push out of the hubs with my fingers I borrowed this beastie from Lee and Nathan just in case, cheers guys, we first used it on the GTR when it was defeated by the indestructable drive shaft since repaired and ready to go...



Once the joint is out of the hub, rest it on the control arm so as not to damage the inboard end and snip the cable ties retaining the CV boot, then slide the boot up the drive shaft out of the way for the moment...



Use some tissue/rag/cloth to wipe off the excess old grease from the driveshaft and joint and then, using a hammer, tap off the old CV joint from the drive shaft, don't be shy, is only held on with a small circlip which you can see just back from the end of the shaft in this pic...



Put the old joint to one side, the new one I bought has a £5 exchange value when you return the old joint for reconditioning...



Unpack the new joint kit and test fit in the hub and the drive shaft to make sure it fits, I'm quite lucky, Chi's old 1.8 hubs have the same number of splines as Meanies old hubs do...



Next, remove the old circlip from the drive shaft, I used a carpenters awl for this, remove the old CV boot, this was in pretty good nick and i'll keep as a spare especially since the drivers side is pretty badly perished, its also the boot I drove to Driffield to fit using Stu's wonderful CV boot gun, but thats another story Clean the rest of the excess old grease from the drive shaft and splines. Then. grab your new circlip...



and fit it to the driveshaft...



Then, get distracted like I did and fit the new CV joint to the driveshaft, realise what you've done, swear for a bit, roll a smoke...



...curse some more and take the previously mentioned hammer to your lovely, shiney new CV joint and knock it back off the driveshaft

Once you've stopped kicking yourself, slide the new boot overthe driveshaft...



Fit the new CV joint to the driveshaft, again



Grab the sachet of CV grease and squeeze it into the back of the joint and inside the boot, the easiest way to this I find is to hold the boot up to the joint and hold it so the bottm lip of the boot is over the joint and the top has about an inch gap. you may find disposable glove are useful at this point because you'll need to push the grease in to once or twice to make it all fit Once you've got most ofthe grease in, slide the boot over the joint and secure it with a cable tie or the supplied metal ring clip, put a cable tie around the driveshaft/small end as well

Pop the splined end of the new joint into the hub, refit the hub to the strut, recalibrating the camber as in the guide shot, refit the steering arm, and screw on the new hub nut, tighten it up nice and tight, nip it into the slot in the end of the shaft with very blunt screwdriver and...

Hey presto, all done



Replace the brake line, hose retainer, disc, caliper and wheel, drop the car off the stands, remember to tighten the wheel nuts, pack your tools way, have a cup of tea and a smoke and enjoy silent cornering again

No dogs were used in the making of this guide

squidy's guide is here... viewtopic.php?f=19&t=50529

Copy your post into the guides section!

Good work

very impressive and a good guide too, i may be needing this very very soon myself

Nice work Mr M, glad you kept the good boot for a sparesies

Thanks guys, I'll be posting it under the titlle 'CV Joint Replacement - The Alternative Easy Way'

Stu, I'll be needing the 'gun' again to fit that baby Nice challenge, can you do the gun thing twice to the same boot?

Now, due to an unexpected bout of childcare today, my trusty-ish helper and I sorted the HIDs

For several months, like, since just after JAE, I've been running around with one halogen H3 in the drivers side headlight and a defective 4300K HID in the other, this HID was the last of a replacement set I fitted in '12 after the origional bulbs from the slimline ballast set bit the dust, I've never really been happy with the slimline ballasts, they never seemed as bright as the old ballasts, they flickered alot and were heavy on bulb, wheras the first set of HIDs I fitted were brilliant and wer kind on bulbs, only a cable being eaten by the power sterring belt killed them

I got a second hand set of big ballasts from Matt just before JAE and as usual they've been gathering dust since, today would change that!!!!!

This is what I've been running around with until today....



As you can see, the HID isn't even as bright as the halogen H3, Ipopped it in because I literally couldn't see a thing at night

So I swapped the halogen out first, there is no pic of the ballast mounting because its embarassing



For the other side I decided to remove the remote control unit that used to switch the fogs/cruise lights, not used it in years and years, so of it came...



Here is my trusty helper being ish....



Here is the ballast in its new home, I used the provided bracket (one of my origonals - if anyone has another of them spare I'm in the market - i think I've binned my other one by mistake ) and the bracket I made up for the remote unit ....



Finally, here are both the new 4300K bulbs and big ballasts fired up and working, nice, and from my recent test drive to Asda (other stores are available) I can see in the dark again



Having said that, I may try 3000K bulbs next time, I think the human eye sees yellow light WAY better than white light

Hang on? Did I just do like TWO mods AND some maintenance in TWO weeks, damn, I must kerb my enthusiasm, I have a reputation to maintain

excellent work , i miss being able to see in the dark......as soon as i get some 4300k bulbs ill be refitting mine, the bigger ballast is a bit of a pain to hide but much more reliable

looking lovely, nice job

As promised Stu, title change

Gonna try and fit one of my TWO Type R body computers this weekend, hopefully I'll get my fading interior lights back AND the ice sensor might work too

Nice one

Suppose its my turn now for the carbon fibre thread .......