Wax and Headlights

Where do I start? I got a long weekend thanks to my company’s new found love of MLK Day and the weather here in Albuquerque was 59-61 all three days, so I took advantage and spent most of the daylight hours outside or in the garage. My hands are cut up and coated in wax and polish. Life is good.

Saturday was completely devoted to wiring up my Moss Low Profile headlights. I estimate that particular install to be about 95% wiring, 5% actual wrench turning and headlight installing. The original wiring job I did on the 97 version of Sharka was pretty poor. The wiring was a rat’s nest. It worked, it used relays, and all four lights lit up when the high beams were on, but it was not pretty. I bought a nice fuse block and expandable set of relay blocks LAST WINTER in order to do the wiring right. That never happened and the parts sat. Well, they got used this past weekend. And I didn’t even lose anything! YAY! Anyway, on Saturday, I sorted out where to install the relay block and new fuse box. I also crimped and clipped in the wires for the relay blocks. That was a good 4 hours of pure OCD wiring happiness. It was almost better than laying stripes.

Sunday, I managed to get down to the headlight installing part of the job. The stock lights come out real easy, but there’s two braces that are spot welded and require drilling out. That was all of about 10 minutes work and then I bolted the new-old low profile headlights in place. I’m still just thrilled that they weren’t hurt at all in the wreck. I then ran wires from the new relays to the old/new headlights and fired them up. A quick trip to Radio Shack and a diode install later and they work! I need to put together a page for the tech section of my site…

Monday, I decided it was wax day. Sharka-the-95 has some pretty amazing paint for a 14 year old car, but still, there were some scratches and areas in need of love and I wanted to get a good coat of wax in place since that car is parking outside temporarily. So it was off to the store for some provisions. Wax, polish, rubbing compound, microfiber towels, and other various things that had either got used up or dried up over the winter/summer.

So I got started with the paint cleaner. Sharka was clean from a bath last Thursday, so I just hit him with the california duster and called it good. Paint cleaner took care of a few small scratches and some hard water spots on the hood. Then came the rubbing compound, something I love using and have become quite skilled at over the years (I like color sanding too!). Those few door and nose scratches didn’t know what hit them. They’re now totally invisible. Next, the polish. Let me give this advice: NEVER use 5 year old polish. OMG. It totally clumped up upon contact with the paint and I was left with this yuck that I couldn’t get off. It was back to the auto parts store for fresh polish. It all turned out ok in the end, but getting the old polish off the hood took about an extra hour.

Then wax. My Meguiar’s Medallion was all used up so I tried some of the Meguiar’s NXT wax. It was amazingly good! It went on well and came off well. If it lasts 2 months, I’ll be happy.

It was a great weekend of garage time. I love New Mexican winters.