A little cleaning can go very far

- Clean fuses, make lights (and other things) work

Uttering the loudest 'duh' of the century, I gazed upon the impressive sight that was all lights working on the B (well, except for the indicators). In the past only the headlights and the lights on the left side of the car worked, meaning that it would be illegal to drive at night and that I had a good chance of being pulled over at any time by a cop.

Where in the past I generally had several goals for the weekend and was only able to complete about half of one, this weekend I set one simple goal: fix the lights. Easy enough, I thought. I assumed that the bulb had either burned out, the contacts were dirty, the wires broken, .... . Worst case scenario I would tie the right lights to the left lights by a direct cable.

I did find it strange that the headlights worked normally, and even the brake lights on both sides worked - ruling out the possibility of dead wires or a bad connection on the right side. I assumed all running lights (not including headlights) were on the same circuit, however taking a look at the fuses showed that they are in fact not on the same circuit. Here are some circuits I've been able to deduce:

- Headlamps
- Brake lights
- Indicators
- Left running lights
- Right running lights

If one of these things don't work, the circuit is dead. I'm still trying to figure out what's wrong with the indicator.

Cleaning out the fuses (shop was too far away for me to go pick new ones up, and these were fine after a clean-up anyway - degreaser and some sand paper) and testing with a multimeter, amazingly the lights turned on! Who knows what else started working...

I've bought a timing light which I plan to use next weekend to adjust timing. My brakes should be arriving soon, so I'll try to get that done too. We'll see how things pan out.

Also I should mention that the tachometer completely randomly started working, but the clock stopped working. I don't know what I prefer. Tach, I guess.

Britain and America

While British cars have traditionally been compact, fun to drive, and perhaps more style than power, American cars tend to be the complete opposite. The evidence:


I bet I could drive my B in through the DTS's passenger door.

(2008 Cadillac DTS that my girlfriend rented)