Weekend Warrior

So this weekend the sun was out, and even though it was a little cold, I decided to do a little minor work on Dudley.

First I replaced 3 of the hubcaps as they had a bit of corrosion.  I still had a few nice hubcaps left from my days with Bernie, so I shined them up and popped them on.  They look nice on top of the beauty trim rings!

New and Old

New and Old

I also tried to work on the dome light, buzzer, and door switch.  So far that has been a hideous disaster, but more on that later.

Old Tail Light Housing Seal

I also did battle with some West Coast Metric taillight seals I purchased on theSamba.com.  There wer many challenges associated with this silly little job that I had done before.  First, I had to figure out the best way to unbolt the tail light housing from the car.  I couldn't find the right socket for the socket wrench, but after much trial and error, I got it.

Then I got beside the car and found that I couldn't get to the nuts from the side.  I'd have to get under the car.  This required me to jack the car up.  Fine, I did that, got the car up, managed to get the taillight housing off, and then I mislabeled the colored wires.  Ugh.

Then my battles began with the taillight seals.  I hear WCM is quality, so I didn't get too bent out of shape when I found that the seals didn't fit the housing.  I spent an entire evening getting those seals on, putting them in the dryer, pulling, stretching, massaging, only to find the next morning that they still weren't on well.  Oops, I put the left seal on the right housing and so forth.  Goddamnit!  The next morning, this seals peeled right off.

I tried to stretch and lube the seals.  Nope, that didn't work.  Finally, Sarah suggested that I boil and stretch the seals.   Good idea!  That let me stretch the seals just enough to get them on the housing.

Boiling the WCM Seals

New Seal Mounted on Tail Light Housing--Done!