Tales of the Grey Ghost: August 2017

LED tail lights.

I finally broke down and bought a set of LED tail lights for the van.

they look great, but I noticed a major problem right away... the brightness level between parking light and brake light was almost non existent... the parking lights were too damn bright!

that was a major safety issue for me, I want people to be able to tell when I hit the brakes, or the turn signal is on, and at these brightness levels, and today's distracted drivers.. this wasn't going to work.

I ended up adding a 150ohm resistor inline on the parking light side, which dimmed them down enough to make it work like it should

New LED vs my old Altezza's and the stock lens.

parking light

Brake light

I also swapped out the backup bulbs for LEDS.

much brighter and it's a nice white light.

short and fat

I have been running 275/60s on 15x8 rims for a very long time...
last year I managed to find a set of 15x10s for a great price, and they have been sitting in the garage waiting for me to need new tires.

This spring I finally put some rubber on them and mounted them up.. I can't believe I waited this long to do it!

sorry, the pictures don't do it justice.

Safety Pins

not that I really need them, but I have always wanted to put hood pins on the astro..
so that's what I did on Sunday.

Water pump

Coming home from "A Boogie Affair" last weekend, I noticed some bearing noise coming from the engine as I got home. I pulled the van into the garage and popped off the belt and started checking all the pulleys, and discovered the fan was moving a lot... time for a new water pump.

This past weekend I took the time to swap it out.. not nearly as difficult as I expected considering the amount of room there is to work.

not that you can see it once it's installed, but I painted it bright red.
I also sandblasted and painted the fan.