Tuesday, July 25, 2023
Today, with help from my son, we installed the first four 8-foot LED shop lights in the garage. They look absolutely great!
Rather than connect them with cables, I decided to use hard connectors to connect the lights from end-to-end,, which created a much, much neater look when installed.
My plan is to have three strips of lights running the length of the garage, which amounts to 4 8-foot lights. The back wall of the shop is probably going to be a little dark, but most of the business is going to take place on the other end. I can always add some 4 foot LED lights to the back end of the shop if necessary.
But frankly, I’m not worried about the back wall of the shop. Its significant progress to get the lights up. Of course, it was sweltering today, and Elijah was the one who had to go up and down the ladder, drill the holes for the mounts, install the clips and mount the lights. He did a great job.
He goes back to WKU in about a month, so I need to get his help to finish the lights before then.
My plan is to prewire a two gang metal outlet box that he can mount on the front rafter, and the three sets of lights can plug into one of the fourt outlets. That’s my plan, anyway.
PLYMOUTH UPDATE. I wish like hell I had a substantial update to write on the Plymouth. The damned truth is that I haven’t installed the new brake light switch. I haven’t figured out what exactly happened to the DC line that goes from the headlight switch to the brake light switch. When the brake light switch is closed, it sends 12vdc to the tail lights. Simple, right??
Only simple if the DC voltage is where it was — or should be. Right now, my fix is going to be to run a separate DC line from the starter relay terminal to the brake light switch. This will get me safely back on the road.
The car is suffering from garage rash — lots of dust, and she needs polishing. My hope is to have her ready to roll for the local cruises in August.
PAINT AND BODY ISSUES WORSENING. The car’s bodywork continues to deteriorate. the driver’s side lower front quarter has signs of major bondo rot; my paint thickness gauge shows some areas have 40 mils of paint, sealer, bondo, etc. There are rust bubbles growing in the lower door corners, and its obvious from close inspection that the lower doors already have had a lot of body filler. I’m thinking the lower doors and quarters are going to need a lot patching.
I’m going to have to start work on the body work this fall. I’m going to hope that I can get the repairs done, then try to paint it once done. I wish I had an in-between project on which to practice my painting skills. I still would like to paint the 87 Dodge pickup to hone my spraying skills on.
That’s enough for now, wish me luck getting Elijah to help me get the rest of the lights installed.