What a Great Sunday!

Well, I finally finished off my sister-in-law’s PC this morning. Getting McAfee to install was a real bitch, since some weird files were stuck in the registry and took me many tries to get the correct tools downloaded and run, before the system would snap shut and fail. Nonetheless, perseverance prevailed and I can check that project off my list. It only took two months to get around to it :)

The day was looking so nice and sunny out that I just had to jump on my motorcycle and take it for a short jaunt into the hills. The temperature was a gorgeous 70 degrees out with nothing but blue skies. After just a half an hour of riding, I found myself on top of Patterson Pass, in Livermore, looking down on the valley of windmills. It was windless today, which was fine by me. Fifty one miles took just over an hour, then it was time to get ready for the trick or treaters.

Emily left me alone with the puppy to pass out candy to the kids. I grabbed my rubber skull mask and my skeleton gloves. The kids just love that kind of stuff. Between the rings of the doorbell, I was able to get in a chapter of physics reading. On top of that, I got to watch the San Francisco Giants handily beat the Texas Rangers in Game 4 of the World Series, shutting them down 4-0! That was awesome!

Tonight, I started working on reviving an old Dell Precision 340. I think I’m going to tool around with a couple of old Palm Pilots I have sitting around. They’re worth practically nothing on Ebay, so I figure I can just write some fun apps for them and possibly work up to iPhone versions, if the applications are good enough. That’ll get me back into the programming swing of things. But so far, the Dell has been less than cooperative. I had to change the CMOS battery, but then, it’s still returning NTLDR errors. Hmmm. I’ve been trying to reinstall the OS, but it’s not taking the CD. We’ll work on it more later…

Fog Lamps for the Prius- Getting Ready for Winter

Wow! It’s almost been a whole month since I bought those fog lamps for Peaberry, our new Prius. I found them on JuicyHybrid.com. They look exactly like the OEM lamps that come on the Prius V model, but they’re $300 cheaper! I finally had a break in my school homework schedule, where I could get these things installed, before the weather gets bad.

The kit was quite complete and the quality is excellent! Fortunately, I downloaded some .pdf instructions from one of the Prius forums, because the included instructions were absolutely useless. I didn’t have any ramps, so I had to do the installation flat on the ground, and let me tell you, that front end is mighty low! I think it’s only about eight inches high and it was a total bitch trying to get my head under there to see what was going on! Even worse, I couldn’t find my floodlight, so I had to use a headlamp, which didn’t work well, trying to sneak my head under that bumper.

The installation went fairly smoothly, but there were some questionable steps in the instructions and I really had to figure them out. I had issues trying to get through the firewall- on my first attempt, I tried to use an old spoke as my fishing tape, but it was way too short. My wife was able to produce a pretty decent clothes hanger for me, so I went with that. Everything about that car is tight, so I got a descent amount of scrapes. Working under the dashboard was no fun either. With all my little breaks and difficulties, the installation took me almost five hours. It should have taken me one hour :(

All in all, I am very satisfied with the product and the installation. We took it for a test drive tonight and the light intensity and pattern is fantastic. I feel much better knowing that my wife will have better visibility on those dreary, foggy days.

Rainy Day Projects

Well, I finally got a little breather in my semester- my massively important physiology exam went better than expected, so I’m taking the weekend off to do some much needed safety projects.

Over the past couple weeks, I’ve been shopping on FleaBay for some LED signals to replace my current setup that I have deemed “unsafe”- I just don’t think that they’re bright enough or visible enough from their mounted positions. The front ones that I picked out have little side marker windows, so drivers from your side have an opportunity to see your signaling as well. The two sets together cost me about $45 total. I stopped by my local Tap Plastics shop to pick up some scrap plastic to prefab some signal adapter plates. I grabbed some lock washers of different sizes to help the new signal stalks stay secure.

Also on the agenda was to fix those darned dashboard lights. A while back, I did an LED dashboard light mod, but I never liked it much- the bulb lighting was never as bright as the OEM ones and eventually, they went on the blink. As much as I hated to do it, I went down to the stealership and just made the purchase, and OUCH! they were costly!

One last thing I needed to do was to bleed my rear brakes and install the rear brake pressure sensor. Apparently, the Woodcraft rear sets are so racing oriented that they don’t provide compatibility with OEM brake switches. I paid an extra $16 for the banjo pressure switch, but didn’t have time to install it, when I installed the rear sets.

Installing the front signals turned out  to be slightly trickier than I had anticipated. One of the signals had a third wire, which caught me off guard. I looked it up and apparently, some bikes have marker lights. Not mine. I just soldered it to the ground wire. When I tested them out, only four out of the fourteen LED’s wanted to fire on each side! It took me a while to figure out that I needed to start the motor to load up the system a little more, then all the LED’s worked and they were bright!

Since my old rear signal setup were integrated into the tail section pieces and now they’re going to be flanking the license plate, I decided to change out the tail plastic. I had purchased a couple of spare parts off of Ebay in anticipation of this, so I was ready to go. They’re a little scratched, but I’m planning on getting the bike painted someday, so it’s no biggie. They took a little while to get washed up and waxed, but they went on with no incident.

I got the brackets set up on the license plate. I had to drill some smaller holes in the brackets, since the stock holes were larger than I needed. One more trip to Home Depot for more washers and I was good to go.

It seemed such a waste to flush the brake system, since it didn’t really need it, but it was a necessary evil in order to get swap the banjo screws out. I was happily surprised to find that I did not have to cut and splice the connector from my old brake switch- the new one happened to have the same connector as my Suzuki setup, so despite what the instructions said, I ignored them. I got it back together, fired up the bike and everything was peachy! Well, almost…

After testing the system a while, I determined that one of the rear signals wasn’t quite functioning right- only the outer LEDs were lighting up, leaving about six bulbs inactive, otherwise, the installation was a success. I contacted the Ebay seller about the problem, sending him a picture, so he’s going to send me out a replacement. When the replacement arrives, I just have to send the bad one back in the included prepaid envelope. Such service!

Update: A few days ago, I called Woodcraft and ordered the rear master cylinder brake spring and heel guard. I know they’re not absolutely necessary items, but they’re definitely nice to have and it’ll help with the feel of the brake pedal.