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Found 15 results

  1. Guys, I bought a new Hella Classic Horn set for my Vitz and going to fix it (didn't want to do myself but looking forward to If I can make it). I am extending from my question in the following thread and reply from @tiv . Just finding facts and getting guidance. Quoted is the @tiv reply. It seems that there is a relay in the Fuse box and a separate fuse for the Horn. But the thing is the relay is a Relay Integration (highlighted below). It's a single unit with several fuses. So, can I use the existing line and split it to connect the two horns in the new set without using a new relay? What is the method if I must install a new relay too?
  2. Been a while since I posted something on here. I have many projects going on at the moment and I thought the community would find this interesting. Especially you folks restoring classic cars. I've been restoring one of my dream cars (more about that in a separate threads I guess), and due to the pandemic it has been really difficult to find timely electroplating services. The wait times range from 3 to 6 months just to submit plating jobs. So I decided to take matters into my own hands after seeing a couple of friends doing it with great success. Unlike my usual DIY posts, this is not a step by step "how to", but sharing my experience and a few gotchas when electroplating at home. I'll mainly be talking about Zinc plating, but most of what I've shared here is transferrable to Copper, Nickel and Gold plating as well. Before I get started it must be said that plating involves dealing with hazardous chemicals and substances. So protective gear is a must, and ensuring that you work in a well ventilated area and keep children and pets away from your plating station. I purchased a 10L Zinc plating kit from a local website which includes pretty much everything you need to get started including the power supply and an extremely detailed plating manual. The next step is to set up the plating station. One of the challenges for me was to find a work surface large enough to be able to accommodate everything. I already had a couple of foldable tables and I set the station up on those. My garage is still a work in progress - so excuse the mess. I got square 20L containers - a lot of them! And about 50L of distilled water cans (5L x 10). You should absolutely not use tap water for this as it contains Chlorine and other impurities that would cause poor plating and interfere with the electrolysis as well. So once the station was setup, it looked like this: The process of electrolysis can be broken down into several steps: Cleaning and degreasing the metal surface: The metal surface is cleaned and degreased to remove any dirt, oil, or other contaminants that may interfere with the plating process. Immersing the metal surface in the zinc plating solution: The cleaned metal surface is immersed in a solution containing zinc ions. The solution is usually an acidic solution of Zinc Sulphate or Zinc Chloride (my kit contains a Zinc Chloride powder to be mixed with distilled water to make the electrolyte). Applying an electric current: An electric current is applied to the zinc plating solution, causing the zinc ions to be attracted to the cathode (the metal surface being plated). The zinc ions deposit onto the surface of the cathode, forming a thin layer of zinc. Removing the plated parts: Once the plating process is complete, the parts are removed from the solution and rinsed to remove any excess zinc ions. In my photo above the containers towards the left of the Zinc Plating bath are cleaning and prep solutions. I have a strong Hydrochloric Acid solution where corroded or previously electroplated items can be placed (while monitoring) for a while until rust and plating is removed. What I do is use a wire wheel and then a paint stripper pad to polish the parts as best as I can so that the surface is nice and clean. I tried sand blasting some of the parts, but I was not a fan of the grainy texture which results in a dull finish. Cleaning it with a wire wheel and paint stripper disc gives any metal surface a nice shiny and clean finish which is what you want. It goes in the HCL acid for about 30 minutes after that. Here's a photo of a bolt before and after cleaning with a wire wheel and paint stripper. The bolt on the right used to look like the bolt on the left. It actually looks like it's already Zinc plated! Preparation is definitely key! After the HCL acid dip, the part is taken out and rinsed in a distilled water bath for a few seconds. Next, it goes into a detergent bath which is sort of a soapy water solution. A toothbrush is used to brush every nook and cranny of the part and then it goes into another distilled water rinse. Then it goes into a second distilled water rinse as the first rinse could contain impurities from the detergent. From this point onwards, you cannot touch the plating parts. In fact, you shouldn't touch them with bare hands after the HCL bath. Wear gloves and even with gloves, handle the part with extreme care and ensure water does not bead on the part. Use copper wire and secure the part so that it can be hung in the electrolyte. Next comes the most interesting part - the actual plating. Lay the aluminium bars on the top of the bath and connect to the power supply as covered in setting up your bath. Check the Zinc Plating chemical temperature. It should be operated at a temperature of 25C - 30C to achieve the best results. I used a cheap aquarium heater set at 28C to ensure that the bath is always within the optimum temperature range. I also use a small aquarium pump to ensure the electrolyte is moving around - this ensures an even plating. Especially if the part is odd shaped. Connect the power supply and wire up the leads. The zinc anodes are hung on the positive line and the plating work is hung on the cathode. How long you leave them in is up to you. Recommend between 45 and 60 mins. After you place them parts, ensure all connections are secure and switch the power supply on. As a rule, approximately 1A of current is needed for 160cm² of plating surface. You should see a fine fizzing from the plating parts after a few minutes. Excessive fizzing is bad and it means you are running too much current. Here I have a few bolts and washers being plated. When you remove zinc items from the bath, it goes into another distilled water rinse. You should absolutely not touch the parts with your hands, but just hold them via the Copper wire used to hang them. Looking good so far! Next it goes to an Activator (called METEX IT). This brightens up the hardware and preps them for the gold passivate. Move the parts around in METEX IT for 30 seconds. Afterwards, it goes again into a (new) distilled water rinse. The Gold Passivate the is the tub with the orange liquid (looks like Fanta lol) on the right most corner of the bench. The parts go in there for about 20 second (5 to 30 seconds recommended - the longer you have it there, the stronger the gold colour). Move it around gently. Finally it goes to another (new) distilled water rinse. But this time you only dip the parts once and take them out. Then hang them to dry and admire your work! Here's more parts I have plated so far (mainly suspension nuts and bolts) and the bracket kinda thing you see is a trunk lock mechanism. I'm extremely happy with how the parts turned up. I must admit that the first couple of tries were unsuccessful and I had to plate again. But practice makes perfect. There are a few variables that can go wrong, if you stick to it, you can't go wrong. That trunk lock used to look like this before cleaning and plating: Hope you enjoyed reading that as much as I did writing it up! Cheers!
  3. Hi All, I'm look to buy a mini lathe machine (please check the attached photograph in this post). Are there any place to buy those machines in Sri Lanka?
  4. Hey guys. I am planning to paint my brake callipers and drums (front disc and rear drums scenario) in exterior colour. Planning to do this on my own using TOA spray as I could find the colour I wanted. Anyone else who has done this before or any thoughts in using TOA spray? Also if this is a possibility I would like to paint the tappet cover too! Thoughts, advices and comments are welcome! Let me know if I am about to mess it up 😆
  5. Good Day guys. I love DIY jobs. Recently I've been thinking about giving the dashboard on my 91 Mitsubishi Pajero Mk1 a makeover. It's not horrible looking at all and I can tolerate it, but the metal speaker covers on either side have lost their color and I want to paint these again. But to give it a uniform look I'm thinking about painting the entire dashboard and along with it the console box and everything else. Now about the dashboard it feels like it has a soft layer of vinyl on top, and it has stood the test of time for 30 odd years. But something has melted behind the "Oh Shit!" bar and it just wouldn't come off, and that particular area looks pretty nasty. I I've seen a few posts cautioning against painting dashboards with improper paint that would either peel off or cook under the hot sun and release toxic gases. But videos I've checked out online suggest this Duplicolor Vinyl and Fabric paint, but can't seem to find it here in our resplendent isle. Has anyone of your DIYers had any luck with painting your dashboard, I'd plenty appreciate any advice. Thanks and stay safe.
  6. Hi guys, Back on AL after a long time. I recently stumbled on this website called howacarworks.com . They've got an amazing course on auto engineering that costs just $25, but will teach you basically every little thing you need to know about cars. It comes jam packed with high quality videos as well! Fully recommend it to anyone, especially those who want to learn. I personally think its very important for a car owner to at least understand how a car works so that they don't get ripped off by a makabass mechanic. Course link: https://www.howacarworks.com/video-course/ Admin: Not sure where exactly to place this, but feel free to move the thread if a better home is available.
  7. I'm looking to buy a fuse tap/fuse extender for my car (Honda Grace) which has micro fuses. I'm trying to hard wire a dashcam to my fuse box & is looking for safest DIY way. I have looked though most of the shops in Panchikawatta & all of the shops in Darley road. Shockingly, I was not able to find one - maybe someone in the forum had better luck than me. Can someone help me please? I'm willing to pay for delivery if it can be delivered to me (Dematagoda) soon.
  8. Greetings gentlemen, I just serviced the distributor of my project A72 and wanted to check and adjust the ignition advance curve. At minimum I needed a timing light and a dwell angle meter. As expected, decent tools are expensive. So, here I am looking for a cost effective solution to buying a bunch of speciality tools. Since Arduinos are (relatively) cheap, have sufficient processing power, and has a lot of sensors, I'm trying to make some car diagnostic kit based on Arduino. Disclaimer- With global supply chains down, it will be some time before there is any significant progress in making this. For the time being I'm using this as a note to self and thinking out loud with the hope that experienced AL members would help me realize this project. Intended use I'm building it to use on my 1970's Lancer project car. The goal is to make a cost effective, easy to build, and reliable (for personal use) toolkit for cars of the era with similar technology. This will include most petrol cars with distributor driven ignition system. Once this takes off, I will make everything free and open source for anyone to replicate. Requirements 1. Timing light 2. Tachometer 3. Dwell angle meter 4. Vacuum gauge 5. Exhaust gas analyzer a la emissions test 6. Lambda sensor 7. Compression tester Construction Using Arduino as the brains of the toolkit, peripherals like led light, induction clamp, pressure sensors and gas sensors will be hooked up to it depending on the scenario. It will be connected to a computer over serial where all the input can be displayed. Real time data will be displayed with options to record, analyze, manipulate and share data with Matlab. 1. Timing light A ferrite core with a few windings is placed on the first high tension lead. After monitoring the behavior of the induced voltage with the serial plotter, mathematically determine when to fire the LED to give accurate timing. Consider any delays in the setup and hard code the lines to fire the LED at the correct time. Problems- High induced voltage can fry the arduino. How to control a high wattage LED to give the correct strobe frequency? How fast can the arduino respond? How to address any delays? 2. Tachometer Use the same input as for the timing light. Find the frequency high tension lead is fired. RPM is twice that. Problems- same as above. How to cancel noise from other HT leads? 3. Dwell angle meter A crocodile clip on the contact points with a large resistor in series could pickup the duration the contacts closes. Together with RPM the duty cycle can be calculated. Mathematically determine the dwell angle from the duty cycle. Problems- Will the capacitor mess with it? Protection from any voltage spikes during opening and closing? 4. Vacuum gauge Sensors are pretty cheap. Adapt it to plug in to a vacuum hose. Problems- Range, accuracy and sensitivity? will it respond quickly as analog ones to give real time data? 5. Exhaust gas analyzer Carbon monoxide and hydrocarbon sensors are available. SL emissions tests look only for those two. Temperature and nitrous oxide testing can be added. Problems- Range, accuracy and sensitivity? (will not give real time data because of the design of these sensors. That's alright.) 6. Lambda sensor These wideband oxygen sensors are available off the shelf. problems- Cost. Reliability, accuracy and range. 7. Compression tester Tiny pressure transducers are cheaply available. Can drill out old spark plugs, mount the transducer and seal it. Can make 4 and run simultaneous compression tests on all 4 cylinders. problems- Range, accuracy and precision. Will data be real time? at least all four in sync with time?
  9. Dear all, This is not abot automative but domestic renewable energy. Thouht that you will want to share some thoughts. As you know the electricity bill is giving us heart attacks. Thought of doing a research to see how feasiable to install a solar powered energy system at home. Contacted about 3 vendors and rough cost eatimations are below 1kWp (125 units on average capacity) about 550,00 LKR 1.5kWp ( 125 units on average capacity) about 700,00 LKR. Warrenty - 25 years for the solara pannels / 10 years for inverter. I am now considering if I can buy these units seperately (pannel and inverter and other units) and install by myself for knowledge/fun and most importantly due to higher initial cost. I am not an engineer by profession but good in basics. Please share your thoughts that might help my DIY project. Thanks
  10. It’s been a while I was thinking of getting a BMW E36. But finally I end up getting an E30. The car has not been abused, but it has accumulated work over the period that needs attention. My intention is to gather up all missing bits and pieces together and build the car back to its original glory. This might not be a big project comparing to some ground up projects and restores. But all help and suggestions are welcome. Here are the things I will have to attend immediately. Complete restore of the instrument cluster. Meters worked for few days after me getting the car, except for the Odometer. However stopped working due to a shudder while I was reversing the car. Coolant leak occurred last week. It’s coming from the water pump. Will be taking it out at the local garage. AC fan seems working even at “0” position. And the AC switch is broken so it’s in the on position all the time. There are small works remaining in rest of the car. For example broken winders, shaky door looks, some interior parts, and a good paint job.
  11. Hi Guys, I am currently looking to buy a dash cam and following are my requirements. Also I have few questions and appreciate if you guys can answer them and recommend few brands / models. Requirements 1. Small form factor and inconspicuous 2. Wide field of view 3. Dual Camera / ability to add second camera later on (Not a must) 4. Should not break the bank (Max budget is Rs.10,000) Questions 1. When using a dual cameras, are the footages being recorded as two separate files? or recorded as a single picture in picture style video? 2. Inconspicuous cameras come with adhesive tape. Is that better compared to suction mount type 3. Recommended SD card size that can record at least one hour footage without being over written I am planning to hardwire the camera in to the fuse box with a kit. I will post a DIY tutorial here with the steps. TIA
  12. Hi Guys, Posting a DYI again after quite some time. After I got new wheels for my car, the stock rims have been lying around and I thought of repairing them. Two of the wheels had nasty kerb damage thanks to the previous owner who was careless when parallel parking (wheels with the most damage were the ones on the left). When I was looking for a set of used BBS rims for my car, 90% of the rims I found had kerb damage. So the problem is pretty common and getting these professionally repaired and resprayed can cost a lot. If you are keen on doing this on your own, you might find this post useful. Things you need: Alloy wheel repair putty (eBay Link? This is a specially formulated putty to work with alloy wheels and I found it to be very effective. Sandpaper (200, 400, 800 wet, 1200 wet) Masking tape, scissors, old newspapers to mask Clean rags Water for wet sanding Wax and grease remover/Degreaser Old toothbrush Rubber gloves For illustration purposes, I have selected one area of a rim where you can see kerb damage. This is what I’ll be working with. Step 1: Prepare the surface for repair Using degreaser, toothbrush and a rag, scrub and clean the area and get the grime out of the damaged area. As you can see from the above photo, there’s a lot of grime in there. Next, use the coarse dry sandpaper to remove any material that maybe protruding out of the surface of the wheel. We need a smooth surface and the alloy wheel putty needs to fill in the scratches. The following photo is after sanding and washing the area. Step 2: Apply the repair Putty The putty is a stick and has the texture of crafting clay. It’s a two-part putty and you need to knead it between your fingers for the two parts to mix up (wear gloves for protection). Then roll it on a flat surface to form a very thin bead. Place the bead on the damaged area and press firmly. As the two parts start to react, you can feel the putty heat up. It hardens up rock solid within about 15 minutes. You can start sanding in about an hour. Remember not to apply excessive amounts of putty, because a lot of effort will be needed to sand it down if you do. The stuff is a bit harder to sand than regular body filler. This was the first spot I applied the putty to, I applied a little too much and had to spend a lot of time sanding it down. So once again, VERY little. This photo is probably a bad example of how to apply it, but you get what I mean. Step 3: Sanding Start with 200 grit dry sandpaper and work your way to a smooth surface. Use masking tape to prevent damage to the tyre. If you plan to do only a touch-up and not paint the entire wheel, you might need to mask the wheel as well, to avoid scratching it up. Run your bare fingers on the edge of the rim from time to time and feel the smoothness, you should be able to tell if there are imperfections. When the surface is smooth, move to wet sanding (first 800 grit and then 1200 grit to remove the fine scratches). If you plan to paint the entire wheel, water sand the wheel with these two papers so that the surface has a “blunt” texture. The new paint will stick better this way. After the sanding is done, the surface will look nice and smooth, no more kerb damage! It’s important to sand the putty down so that there is no excessive putty between the tyre and the wheel, you can insert the sandpaper into the gap and sand away, the original curve of the wheel needs to be maintained. As you can see from the above photos, I have sanded the putty all the way down to the rim so that the only bit remaining is the putty that fills the scratches. This is exactly what we need. If you feel like you need one more pass, go ahead and repeat step 2 and 3 again. This is it for the repair. All that is left now is to paint the area. I will cover that in a separate post. Let me know what you guys think and if you know of other ways of DIY methods to repair wheels. Thanks for reading! Cheers!
  13. have you ever use this tool to remove toyota oil filter ?
  14. After wasting couple of thousand+ rupees for a simple scanning at garages I've found that this simple method do it for you without spending a single cent. Worked perfectly for my Nissan N16. Hope this will be helpful for anybody else who experience the same problem.
  15. Found this thread on uklegacy.com http://www.uklegacy.com/forums/index.php/topic/130098-how-to-fix-gen3-jdm-cup-holder/ credit to this guy for doing this… I went a step further with all around images with his thread and images as well as my own. You will need: Cup of tea (I had to as well… what to do it was my tea time) Phillips headed screwdriver Paperclips (possibly) Pliers Step 1. Sip the tea Lol…. Step 2. Remove the center console area which is easy. 2 screws located under the armrest lid, a further 2 underneath the gear stick surround (Top most corner). Carefully remove the center console trim show below. IF it’s a manual tranny hopefully it should be the same technique. Start from the bottom corner of the trim and gently lift them up Step 3: Remove the cup holder and mechanism from the trim. 3 bolts in total underneath. Step 4: Yup I too had to stare a bit to wrap my head around how this was to be done. Sadly found that a piece of the cup holder was broken off (the bottom half of the lid) but for now needed to have the open flap fixed.
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