We've a friend staying with us this week due to poor health while their partner is away on an important business trip, so I'm in a situation where I'm a bit stuck really in that I can't go anywhere or really get involved in anything too in depth in case I'm needed to assist.
Still, there's no shortage of small things I can get done.
[] Van Headlight Reassembly.
Those of you who have known me for a while will be aware that the general field of lighting technology has been an interest of mine going back a couple of decades. There are no shortage of terrible and downright dangerous headlight "upgrade" kits out there, most of which seem to have the sole purpose of blinding as many oncoming drivers as possible. However when an LED "drop in H4 upgrade" popped up on Wish for £3 delivered, curiosity got the better of me and I ordered it. Not long after, a pair of these arrived on my doorstep.
Before I go any further it's worth mentioning that I am completely, fully aware that these are not legal for on road use in the UK. I have no intention of actually using them for general vehicle lighting - they have been bought out of pure scientific curiosity and a wish to see how terrible they actually are. The intention has always for once the testing was completed for them to most likely disappear into the endless pit of despair, otherwise known as the box of miscellaneous lighting technology in the loft.
I had to admit to being really rather surprised. Unlike the vast majority of HID conversions I've seen done over the years, the beam control here isn't actually bad. They've done a surprisingly good job of getting the LED arrays arranged to work well with the standard reflector.
It's worth noting that the nearside headlight is an aftermarket "Depo" branded replacement, and further investigation has shown that the beam from that is pretty poor even with a normal H4 lamp in, despite the headlight having only been fitted for a couple of months - so a proper Hella replacement is now on my wish list.
I did quite a bit of testing walking around in front of the van and asking my housemate to drive past me, and we both came to the conclusion that these headlights don't have any issues with regards to blinding oncoming traffic when they're fitted properly. It's important to note though that the lamps do fit into the collars which locate them in the headlights in four different orientations, so you need to make sure you're putting it in the right way up. I did note in the beam profile on the wall there does seem to be a bit of stray upward light above and beyond what you'd expect normally, but that didn't seem to actually translate into anything noticeable in the real world.
They seem to do a decent job of actually getting light on the road as well. Our streets around here are very well lit since the new LED streetlights were installed, so it's actually not that easy to see the spread of light on the road in front of you with the standard headlights in the van...these seem to do a better job there.
I don't actually think there is any more light hitting the ground from these lamps than the standard H4 ones, I think the light being a nice crisp pure white (I reckon around 5000K - it's a very clean white rather than strongly blue tinted) makes it seem brighter than it otherwise would.
I do reckon that one area (the legality obviously aside) these are going to fail though is longevity. To my eyes the provided heatsinking just isn't close to adequate for the intended application - especially sealed inside a headlight enclosure. The handbook which comes with these actually suggests leaving the back cover off...which is obviously a horrendous idea unless you really do want to destroy your reflectors in ten minutes flat. I'd love to be proven wrong there...and as I do still have the original nearside headlight from the van, I am tempted to stick one in there and set it running somewhere in a corner and just see how long the LED lamp takes to either go pop or to drop in brightness to the point that it can be considered to have failed. I just can't see these having a long life.
The other question for me was "are they an upgrade?" The simple answer there honestly, unless the ability to pick your colour temperature is critically important for your application...No. They don't actually give out any additional light it appears compared to a good quality H4 lamp provided your power supply is in good order.
As for are they terrible and dangerous? Not really...They're certainly a million times more friendly for other drivers than any aftermarket HID kit I've seen...Only real downside I can see possibly there relates to my concerns about longevity and they might fail on you after only a few hours...Though having said that as they're simply a drop in replacement...it's hardly the end of the world (assuming your car isn't one you need to remove the engine from to change a headlight bulb!) to resolve that situation by just sticking a new lamp in, and at least H4 bulbs haven't become too hard to find yet. From the perspective of another driver though, if the colour temperature of these was in the 2700-3500K range, you probably wouldn't be aware that they weren't conventional lamps...it's only the colour which gives it away externally.
Obviously though, they're completely illegal for road use over here, so these are destined for the box of "interesting but useless" lighting stuff. It does give me some hope though that we might some day see a retrofit provided by one of the big lighting companies which might offer a legal drop in H4 replacement. I'd always assumed it was impossible due to the difficulties in getting things to line up optically - but high power COB LEDs have advanced to the point now that it's getting pretty close to being doable now. Provided the output levels were limited to those provided by a conventional H4 lamp and the beam was correct...don't see any reason it couldn't have the relevant approval marks stamped on it. Though the cost of the approvals process for an ever shrinking market may well preclude it ever been deemed worthwhile by the manufacturers...I'll be curious to watch though.
I'm keeping my eyes open for similar H1/H7 retrofits appearing at similarly silly prices...and if/when that turns up I might need to do a similar experiment with the Xantia. Especially given it has headlamps which barely manage to scrape "adequate" as a description on a good day...
First task for today therefore was to return things to original. Despite this requiring removal of the radiator grill and the headlights themselves, this is a five minute job on the van because it's designed sensibly. While I was there though seemed a good time to clean up the offside headlight a bit. This is original to the van and was visibly quite internally grubby, and I was under the impression that the reflector was quite tarnished.
This can't have been helping anything...
Looking closer...
Conveniently as with most things on this vehicle, the headlights themselves are designed with service in mind, and as such the lens can be removed simply by removing four screws. With the lens off I was pleasantly surprised to see that the reflector was in a lot better condition than I was expecting.
Sure it's not perfect; there is a bit of clouding in general and the coating is flaking on the very top and bottom of the housing, but it's perfectly serviceable until such time as I track down a new headlight.
Five minutes scrubbing later had things looking much healthier.
Even more visible with the headlight turned on, it was really obviously cloudy before - and that indicated light that was being scattered and going places other than where it's designed to.
I really like this sort of image...It really does go to show how the reflector, lamp and diffractor design all work together to produce the desired beam profile.
There we go. Everything buttoned back up and tested. Beam alignment was checked just in case anything had moved, which it hadn't.
[] Dog Guard De-Bodging.
Some considerable time ago I needed to take the (then singular, now there are two of them) dog out on my own, so needed a way of keeping him where he belonged in the back of the van...This resulted in me grabbing a cheap and nasty dog guard that I'd discarded long ago from the scrap pile and wedging it in the space behind the seats. Ugly as sin, but it worked.
There were a few drawbacks though...Not least the fact that it rocked backwards and forwards every time you accelerated or braked, it rattled incessantly and made it a royal pain to try to get between the cab and living area. Today I decided to address a few of these issues. The dogs aren't going anywhere...so the dog guard needs to stay...and I'm not really likely to find a bespoke solution at a reasonable price that's going to fit a nearly 30 year old camper...so let's adapt what we've got.
A bit of thinking, a bit of realignment and a quick raid of the plumbing fittings box yielded the necessary hardware and we pretty quickly got things sorted out.
One of the main differences now is that there is a distinct "stowed" and "deployed" position for things.
Stowed, allowing relatively unhindered access between the front and rear of the van. You still need to step over it, but it's a much more sensible height.
Deployed, keeping any wandering dogs from straying into the cab. Not really too much of an issue these days as they know where they're meant to be, but it's nice to know.
No this wouldn't do a thing to keep some dogs in there - but ours are both largish and know where they're meant to be, so it's a visual deterrent as much as anything. We do hope that one day we might be able to employ harnesses, but that's still a ways off as they *really* don't like them...and trying to restrain a husky who doesn't want to be is an act in futility.
Both of the uprights need to have some rubber or similar caps fitted so I don't take my eye out the first time I fall over a dog, and I'll probably trim the one on the nearside down a bit. The offside one can stay at the current height though as it's where I usually have a stash of bags for shopping (which I remember maybe 1 time in 10 to actually take into the shop with me) and similar things left hanging.
Will be handy to help prevent the ongoing problem we have of pillows disappearing into the cab from the bed too, which I've found to be a recurring issue for me.
Haven't had a chance to actually go for a test drive yet, but there's no signs of buzzes or rattles at idle, which is a good start at least.
I'd like to switch to a sliding gate arrangement at some point, though I'm not sure if I'll ever get enough time to sufficiently engineer that...especially as it would need to be rattle free given my hate of all things which rattle! Haven't been able to go for a test run today, but it doesn't buzz due to the engine vibration at idle, so is already an improvement on the original arrangement. Obviously a coat of paint wouldn't go amiss either...
[] Continuation of the Invacar wheel stud saga.
You know some jobs are ones you just know are going to fight you every step of the way? Yes...this is definitely one of those.
I had decided that my first (in this episode!) line of attack to get the one remaining stud out was to tap a new thread on it and try backing it out the same way I did the others.
After a not insignificant amount of swearing due to poor access (due to the proximity of the central mounting flange on the hub which wanted to occupy the same space as my tap), I eventually got a new thread cut in the mangled remains of the stripped stud. Got a locknut fitted, got everything good and hot (it's been soaking in Plusgas for several days now) and...
Cue more swearing.
Scratching my head for ideas which didn't involve drilling the thing out as I don't rate my chances of managing that without damaging the threads, I grabbed the grinder and set about cutting flats into it in the hope that I might be able to get decent purchase on it with the Stilson's - no dice. The hub flange gets in the way of the head before I can get things to lock up to grab the stud...and things just keep sliding off.
I did notice that the two flats I'd cut into it weren't far off the right size to fit a 5/16" brake drum adjuster tool...so set about cutting a matching pair of flats into the remaining sides and put that on there (after applying even more heat). Result: One broken brake drum adjuster spanner.
Given the proximity of large amounts of fibreglass and the inability to move the car out of the garage in its current state I had really been hoping to avoid getting the welder involved...However I was out of better ideas by this point, so got it out, cleaned everything up and welded a nut onto the remains of the stud. Made a point of getting it as hot as I could before starting welding as I was thoroughly expecting the hub to behave as a massive heatsink and make it nigh on impossible to get a strong weld without melting the nut. My weld it turned out held just fine...the stud didn't, and snapped off yet closer to the face of the hub.
By this point I was quite royally hacked off with the thing so got distinctly medieval on it. I grabbed the nearest sized socket from the beat up cheap and nasty set, and hammered it on there with a 4lb lump hammer. I expected this to just slip off - nope. It just sheared the remains of the stud off almost completely flush with the hub.
Next best idea was to cut a reasonably deep slot in it and smack it with the impact driver. Unsurprisingly given that all indications suggested the stud was in fact made of cheese, it just mangled it the first smack of the hammer.
Grinder was busted back out again and the remains of the stud have been ground back flush with the face of the hub. I'll get a couple of new drill bits tomorrow and we'll just drill the sucker out. Have ordered an imperial tap & die kit in the thorough expectation that I'm probably going to need to sort the threads out afterwards...hopefully that forward planning will mean I don't need to!
I do find myself wondering at this point if this stud was ever actually made of an appropriate material from day one...so far this one seems to have behaved as though it's made of monkey metal!
Investigation has revealed that the other wheel nut holes in the hubs have M12x1.5 threads in them. These however only go in approximately 10mm, the thread doesn't run all the way through - even though the hole does go all the way through the hub. So wheel bolt length must have been critical in the original application. The PCD does look to be smaller than the one used by the wheels on there, albeit by the tiniest of amounts, it's barely visible lining the spacer ring which usually sits between the brake drum and the wheel up with the holes.
Stay tuned to find out how this probably goes even more spectacularly wrong and I continue to make an utter meal of what should be a dead simple job!