Lights! Again!

Over the weekend, I finally got around to fixing the broken spring on our garage door, and seeing the wide open openness of it, it was too much of a lure to go work on the Volvo, even though I knew a certain person REALLY wanted me to help with the laundry.

But, as you know, the headlights still had one niggling thing that needed attention, and I couldn't rest because of it--that rapidly flashing turn signal over on the passenger side was very bothersome, so I needed to fix that, and there was the issue of exactly WHICH light was supposed to be flashing. I found out from my various online sources that the upper, clear light is the always-on marker, and the lower amber one is the turn signal. Which is not the way the lights came wired from the factory, which is, in fact, the exact opposite.

So I opened up the hood, and grabbled around for the connector on each side, opened up the clip, swapped the two wires, and clicked it back together. Also made sure the wires were shoved all the way down into the connectors--plugged them back up, and hooray! No rapid flash! And the amber ones were flashing! Apparently, the signal light on the passenger side had a wire connections that was just barely touching--enough to get a bit of light, but not enough to provide full resistance. But now they work just fine.

But what of that filthy engine? (Anything to keep from doing laundry, it seems.)

I had some engine degreaser I had bought a while back for when I was selling Moby, and never got to use it. Hmm. An oil-covered B230F just doesn't look nice--maybe a spritz or two of this stuff...

Despite the stupidity of spraying the engine compartment of an old 240 (which in their dotage have the electrical finickiness of British-made cars, meaning it isn't one of the better ideas of things-to-do), everything thankfully worked out just fine.

Pulled over into the grass so as not to stain the driveway, popped the hood, covered the distributor with aluminum foil, sprayed the foam on there, got the hose, and...

"DADDY! Ashley says she's through and wants you to come get her!"

But! But!

"Okay."

Off to school in Mom's Focus--extra time for the Volvo to soak probably wasn't a bad thing anyway, considering just how much oil was everywhere. Picked up Oldest (who had to be at school early on a Saturday to take a test), took the car up to Sam's to get some gas, got back in--"Hey, you wanna drive back to the house?"

It's been a while since she'd had a turn behind the wheel, and since there was no one else but us, it wouldn't have the added stress of trying to protect her tender psyche from a carload of backseat drivers. I hadn't told her I was going to let her drive ahead of time, though, so the sudden nature of the request put her back a bit. "UHHHH..."

"You want me to get us down to the service road and let you take the back way home?"

"Umm, sure..."

I'm actually glad she said yes--the main north-south drag through town is daunting even for a geezer like me. We went back down the hill and onto the side street, swapped places, and we were off.

Thankfully, not off the road. She did pretty good, but still has that tendency to hug the edge of the lane. She made it home fine, though, and so did I. I still think I need to have a big STUDENT DRIVER decal for the backend of the car, though. She's still a bit unpredictable in her movements, and I could tell several folks on the outside were a bit unnerved when she would stop short or turn wide.

Anyway, she was tickled to drive some, and I was tickled to be back home where I could finish my cleaning chores. Sprayed the engine down and saw things under the grime I didn't even know existed. Cranked it, and oddly enough, it fired right up. Thank goodness.

Still not quite clean, however. And I was all out of foam. Meaning?

Back down to the foot of the hill for more dingderned stuff. And paper towels. We'd run out, so I thought I would be considerate and get another crate of them. And figured I could probably pick up some engine cleaner while I was there--alas, twas not to be. STILL had to go by the parts place. And stand in line. Forever.

It was running up toward noon, and I was still putzing around with the stupid car, and we had the Fall Festival at church to get to and I needed a shower and, and, and...

Whatever.

No use to get too stressed out about it--aside from the fact that someone was not quite happy with the lack of laundry help.

Got back and spritzed everything down again, and this time did the underside of the hood, which had a fine coating of baked-on hydrocarbons. Most of which remain unto this day. I don't think I have ever seen such tenacity by mere oil.

Other chores? Well, I took the cover off the armrest I found the other day--it was a vinyl cover, and so the foam underneath was much cleaner, and it had no gouges in it. Took off the cover of the one in the car, dunked it in Woolite, and found that 20 years of someone else's arm grime can make clean water look just like the Mississippi River. Holy cats, that thing was dirty! I slipped it back on the new old foam to let it dry, and it looks better already. The hole in the corner is still there, but it's not nearly so noticeable with the scrap of blue vinyl as it had been when the gouge was right behind it. Very nice.

And that was about it for the weekend's funtime with the lump of iron!