Let There Be Light

And there was light.

Last night Ariel and her dad came out to work on me. They installed new headlights, taillight bulbs, and a turn-signal flasher unit. I rewarded them with fully functioning headlights and taillights. My floor-mounted high-beam switch is a little iffy working about half the time it gets pressed, but maybe with more use it will get better. They'd already verified that my backup lights work. There is, however, something amiss with my brake lights and turn-signal switch. The brake lights won't work even though there is 12V going though the switch when the pedal is pressed. Also, with the key turned to on, both green arrows on the dash are illuminated, and when the stalk is moved to a turn, there's no blinking. There are other strange symptoms that make them believe that a simple cleaning and adjustment of my switch will fix the turn signalling. Since my brake light circuit also goes through that switch, that should fix that problem too.

While under the dash they discovered a drop of brake fluid at the bottom edge of my master cylinder. That’s not good, but, after sitting for so long without being used what can they expect? I’m hoping, as are they, that usage will allow things to work right again. Regardless, Ariel's dad said he'd do the hard, harder, hardest test on my brakes before they drive me down the road again.

They also installed new wiper blades and ran my wiper motor. They found that I don’t “park” my blades when you turn my switch to off. Ariel’s dad will do some research as to how to fix that problem.

Ariel's dad told her that I'm getting close to being licensed, so that's definitely exciting. He said that the list of things to do is getting short. Fixing the turn signal issue; lubricating my front wheel bearings, suspension, and steering components; installing the seatbelts; doing an oil change; and checking the differential fluid level is all that's left. There are other things that they'll want to do, but they can be done after I'm back on the road.