Saturday, April 7, 2012

Power Steering Fluid Filter

I've had a power steering fluid filter sitting on my desk for almost a year now. Today I finally decided to put it in.

Using a little $4 suction tool I bought from CanadianTire, I sucked out the old oil, took off the nut and spring and then pulled out the old filter. I have a hunch that this old filter might actually be the original one installed 23 years ago!

Friday, April 6, 2012

Becker Radio Install - Day 2

Finally its warm enough to do things outside again. Its been 4 long months since Becker Radio Install - Day 1.

When removing the old radio I saw powered outputs from the Sony head unit plugged into the line-level inputs for the Becker amps so I concluded that the amps must be fried and decided to swap them out with my spares and see if that would fix things.

Taking the seats out was pretty easy. You wouldn't believe the amount of things I found under the seat cushion. Matches, a lighter, business cards, chocolates (even unopened ones), cellphone charger and even an old Motorola pager. How on Earth do things get under the seat like that. I quickly cleaned up everything and moved away the insulation to get a look at the amps.

I plugged in my spare amps and tried the radio. Still nothing. The radio turns on and tunes fine. But no sound from the speakers. Not even static. Poked around with a multimeter and found that the amps were not being switched on.











Searched around for a wiring diagram and found that the signal for the power antenna was also the switch-on signal for the amps. I had this disconnected thinking it wasn't important for now, but as soon as I hooked it up, I had sound! And from all 10 speakers! Yay.

My original amps were alright as well. I thought that something must have been burnt out but nothing. Everything worked fine.

I'm still in the process of putting back the seats. Lots of fettling to get the center bolt to line up for the backrests. I gave up for tonight. Will give it a go again next light.