jim rozen wrote:
There's only so much stuff that can be working correctly
in the universe at one time.
Speaking of bustedness, how many of us have gotten fed up with some POS
product which keeps breaking faster than you can fix it. And you get so
frustrated over wasting your time without obtaining the satisfation of a
"job well done" that....
You just pick up the biggest hammer around and smash the offending item
to bits, then chuck it in the trash barrel to eliminate the possibility
that you'll be tempted to take another frustrating go at fixing it???
Especially when you know that YOU probably could have designed and made
something better in not much more time than you just wasted trying to
fix up the dumb thing anyway.
***************************
I think I've done that about four times in my life and the most recent
one happened this Memorial Day weekend when teen aged son complained
that he couldn't get his '95 Honda Civic to pass state inspection
because the headlights were way out of alignment and the guy at the
inspection station said he couldn't adjust them.
Of course I said, "That's BS son, I'LL fix 'em for you..."
Turns out the girl friend he recently bought the car from had let
someone replace the stock headlights and front parking/turn signals with
some ****e aftermarket "Angel Light Projector" units which might have
been this model:
http://cgi.ebay.com/ebaymotors/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&tc=photo&item=7977207434&ca tegory=33710
I took a look and realized that while the units fit into the car's front
end just fine there was no way to reach all of the beam alignment screws
because some were located where parts of the car's front end metal
blocked them completely.
We took the light units out of the car and I started testing the
alignment screws (separate sets of three for each low and high beam
assembly). Some seemed to do their thing while turning others didn't
appear to make anything move.
The clear fronts and black plastic backs of the units were glued or heat
sealed together, so there was no easy way to get inside them to reach
the moving parts.
Peering inside down through the light bulb access hole in the back of
the units I saw that one of the reflector adjustment screws had popped
it's ball end out of a plastic socket on the reflector assembly,
probably because some klutz had backed the screw so far out it pulled free.
I set up a 1-1/4" hole saw in the drill press and carefully cut an
access hole through the housing right over that ball and socket joint.
Snapping the joint together was easy then, and I twisted a girdle of
binding wire tightly around the outside of the segmented plastic socket
to help keep a disconnect from happening again.
Checking the second light assembly found a similar disconnected joint,
and I repeated the process on it.
I took the fiberglass resin and hardener out from where they sleep in
the kitchen freezer, warmed them to room temperature and put three
layers of glass cloth over the holes I'd made.
Elapsed time spent so far maybe 2-3/4 hours...
Feeling smug as a bug in a rug we set out to align the headlights by
holding them where they'd mount in the car, seeing which way the beams
needed to move, moving them away from the car, turning the adjusters and
testing them while holding them in place again.
We were "sort of" making progress about a half hour later when I
encountered yet another non-functioning adjustment screw. Peering inside
through the light bulb access hole I saw that this adjuster used a
different style of connection than the two I'd already fixed. It had a
broken plastic piece that would have been as difficult to fix as a
dentist trying to crown a tooth by accessing it solely through the
patient's rectum.
That's when I picked up a four pound hand sledge hammer and ended the
whole foolish exercise.
************************
Postscript:
Son's girl friend still had all the car's original light assemblies in
her basement. She brought them over and we put them in his car. Piece of
cake, requiring only one trip to the parts store to replace a bad bulb.
Lined up the headlight beams in two minutes.
************************
Hopefully young son understands, but the look on his face makes me sort
of doubt it......You do what you have to do, I suppose.
Jeff
--
Jeffry Wisnia
(W1BSV + Brass Rat '57 EE)
"Truth exists; only falsehood has to be invented."
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