Tuesday is Garage Day

It is probably good that I have Tuesday off, and Lisa doesn't, as it gives me a guilt free day in the garage. Time to tinker.

I had three goals for today, and managed to completely accomplish two, and somewhat finish the third.

First up was replacing a few speakers in the car that were blown. All of the speakers are 18 years old, so this is not surprising. I picked up a pair at Target last night, and set to work today.

They were a bit big for the openings (depth-wise), so I replaced the rear two with the new ones. It was not a perfect fit (they still were a bit deep) so I had to kind of force down the trim piece over the opening, but it worked.

I then took the good one from the rear, and placed it in the front passenger door. And viola! I have better sound.

Next up was wiring in an auxiliary input for the stereo. I have been cheating with a cassette adapter, but the cassette player is reluctant to cooperate. Sometimes it works great, other times I get no sound.

I had a Scosche adapter that plugs into the antenna, and then gets wired into the car. I had to run to the parts store and get a blade to stick into a fuse spot, but then it was pretty easy. Now I have not one, but TWO radio transmitters running into the stereo (one for the XM radio and one for the ipod). It doesn't sound perfect, but it was $1.92 short of free (I had the thing from an old car) so that works for me.

The less than successful bit was working on the rust spot I have been trying to fix. I got the rust off fine, but painting has been the devil of me. I hit it with a few more coats of paint today, and then clear coated it. The color is pretty close (18 year old paint vs. new paint close), but the texture is not so hot. I spent some time sanding it with 2000 grit, and that seems to be making it better. I will have to spend some more time with the old elbow grease to see what I can do.

One happy Smudge

-- Post From My iPhone

I recently purchased a 1991 Acura Integra LS.  In the process of getting it ready for winter, I discovered a lot of water in the spare tire well.  Not good.

After sopping it up, I went to 2gic.com and searched for likely causes.  Among the common culprits are: 

-sunroof drains that are plugged or disconnected

-antenna drain tube that is plugged or disconnected

-bad weather stripping around the rear hatch

-a gap between the taillights and the body

-bad gaskets around the compression vents.  (The compression vents are vents visible in the rear trunk area, and on the leading edge of the taillights.)

A visual inspection showed no tears or separation in the weatherstripping, and the gap between the taillights and body was tight.  So it was time to dig deeper.

I did some more investigating, but nowhere could I find photos of what to look for.  So, armed with a camera and a phillips screwdriver, I set to work.

I chose to start on the passenger side, and it is the easier side (the fuel filler is not in the way).  The first step is to remove the panel over the speaker.  It is held in place by 3 phillips screws.

Once the screws are out, the panel just lifts away.

Then, with a good light, I looked down, and the hose was clearly visible.  And even more clearly disconnected.  I just reached in and fitted the upper part into the lower part.  Super-simple.

I looked to see if there was anything else to do, but it seemed good.

The other side was a bit harder because of the fuel filler.  I had to remove more of the cover, but the result was the same: a disconnected sunroof drain hose.

While in there, I also discovered that my power-antenna drain was not connected to anything.  There wasn't a lot I could do about that because the previous owner removed the power-antenna and replaced it with a fixed one.  I will seal up the opening for that, too, and hope this does the job.