Tagged With: Automotive

Auto Bulbs

Auto Bulbs

Auto Bulbs

We picked up our van from Eddie this afternoon and I took this picture of light bulbs at the shop.

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Replacing Van Headlights

Replacing Van Headlights

Replacing Van Headlights

The headlights on our minivan have been a bit cloudy since we got it, many years and even more miles ago. It had about 115 thousand miles on it then and it’s up to 257 thousand now. The headlights are not terribly effective and on dark stretches of road, where there is no other traffic, they really were not adequate to let you see the road ahead. I’ve been meaning for a while to do something about it. I ordered a pair of lights and installed them today. As you can see, the lenses in these are much clearer than the old pair, sitting on the ground in front of the van. I’ve driven with them and they are a big improvement. Now that I know I can do it, I’ll buy another pair (they were $68 for two, with free delivery) for the van that Dorothy drives.

Each headlight is held in by one screw and three nuts that tighten onto bolts on the back of the lights. The screw is quite easy to get to but at least one of the nuts on each light was a little hard to reach (but not the same one on each). They all have 10mm heads but my 10mm wrench is fairly short (overall length 5.5 inches / 140mm), making it less useful than it might have been (but still my best bet in the tight space. I may get a long handled wrench before I do this on Dorothy’s car, although having done it once, I’m more confident I can do it again.

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Car Head Lamp Bulbs

Car Head Lamp Bulbs

Car Head Lamp Bulbs

As seen on my post for Wednesday, November 22, 2017, I replaced the headlights in my Dodge Grand Caravan. The new headlight assemblies came with new bulbs but I kept the old set, mostly because I thought I’d take some pictures of them at some point. Well, we’re reached that point. The glass bulb around the filaments in these two are slightly different and the precise configuration of the internal connections is a little different, but they are basically the same (which makes sense because they were in the same vehicle). I think they’re kind of cool. The two coils are not as close together as they appear in this photo. The coil on the left in each bulb is slightly behind the one on the right.

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That Can’t Be Right

Flat Tire

Flat Tire

As I mentioned in yesterday’s post, I met some friends from work at Uncle Julio’s for happy hour. It hadn’t been a particularly happy day and I decided I would benefit from socializing as opposed to coming home and reading or more likely dwelling on my frustrations. Shortly after everyone got there my phone rang. It was Cathy saying she had a flat tire. She ended up taking an Uber to where she was going and I picked her up from there a little later.

We went to work together today and I attached a pump to the flat tire to see if it would hold air at all. Almost immediately I notice the head of a screw in the treads and figured it wasn’t worth the effort. It wasn’t going to hold air. Around lunchtime I went over to her building and put on the spare. I would normally joke that the tire was only flat on the bottom but as you can see, it held its shape pretty well. This was taken with the tire in the back of the van. I was happy to find that the spare had air.

Just one of those things.

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270,000 Miles

270,000 Miles

270,000 Miles

Years ago we bought a Dodge Grand Caravan from our mechanic. He had bought it from a couple that we happen to know when they decided not to pay for a new transmission. Eddie put in a new transmission and then sold the van to us. At the time it had about 115,000 miles. As you can see, it now has 270,000 isn’t bad on that second transmission. That’s not to say we haven’t put more into it, of course. In fact, it’s getting pretty near the time when it’s casting too much to keep going. Pretty son we’ll need to replace it. But I’m happy t have reached this “milestone.”

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