Subaru Headlight Yellowing Fix

I recently bought the Blue Fox (a 2005 Subaru Forester 2.5x @ 200K km) to help me work on a house I am rehabbing in Canada.  The car, being 15 years old, has a multitude of little (and some not so little) problems that are common for a vehicle of this age.

One of the more common problems with a vehicle that is more than a decade old is yellowed headlights.  Not only are they unsightly, yellow headlights are not as good at throwing light down the road as they should be posing somewhat of a safety risk.

Fortunately, fixing yellowed headlights is pretty simple.  Just buy some BRASSO and polish the yellow off!  In this case I bought a polishing/buffing kit for my drill, but you can just use elbow grease if you don't feel like spending any more than the minimum.

After an hour (in my case) the headlight looked great, and then I applied some Castor Oil to the plastic headlights - and the plastic bumper too!

It all turned out great - and you can do this too!\

Subaru - Pull Mist Lever Not Working

On Day 2 of owning the 2005 Subaru Forester 2.5X I was presented with yet another mysterious situation...the windshield wiper fluid didn't seem to be working! 

When it comes to my 2006 Mitsubishi Outlander, when I pull back on the wiper control arm, the wiper juice pump(s) kick in, juice sprays on the windshield and the wipers move. 



Not so with the Subaru!  When I pulled back on the wiper arm, the wiper blades started moving...but there was no way I could get it to spray any juice, even though the control arm is clearly marked "Pull Mist" - whatever that means!

So I went about isolating the problem - which ended up being between my ears! 



This video details my deductive process to finally figure out how to get juice on the front windshield - a solution I finally reached - but one that was (clearly) non-intuitive!

I can only conclude that it must be extremely foggy in Japan.  That's the only reason I can determine to have a wiper mode in a car that actuates the wiper blades to cycle once...and emit no juice!

N.B.:  If you want juice, just push the button on the end of the wiper stem.  :)

2005 Forester - Driver Door Lock Replacement

I purchased a used 2005 Subaru Forester 2.5X yesterday!  Yaay!  Another Subaru Forester!  I just love them!


This 2005 Subaru Forester 2.5X has many, many problems to discover and diagnose - some obvious and some more mysterious and hidden!  

The first problem to fix with this car was really obvious and quite serious.  

The only physical lock (the driver door lock) was not working right.  It was *impossible* to insert the key because there was an object lodged inside the lock, obstructing it.  It seemed to me that it was one of two things  (1) The internal mechanism of the lock had broken and a piece of it had become stuck inside, or a key had snapped off in the lock.  Either way, there was something stuck in the lock, preventing key insertion.


Figuring that it was a snapped off key and that I would need to replace the lock entirely, I went about figuring out how to remove a lock from a 2005 Subaru Forester 2.5X, filming the process as I went.  

After a bit of a false start, I figured out how to access the mechanism, and then removed the lock.  

I discovered that the thing obstructing the lock was not a broken key, but rather the little steel flap that is integrated into car door locks to protect them from the weather.  In this case, the steel flap had broken off and become lodged in the lock mechanism.  



Once I got the lock out of the door and tipped it over, the little flap just fell out into the grass!  Then I could insert the key!  So after that, it was just a simple matter of removing all of the accumulated rust from the lock, backing plate and door interior, and then re-installing the lock back where it came from.

This video documents the entire process in such a way that a reasonably mechanically-inclined person could reproduce my intended result, which was to demonstrate how to take out and put in a driver door lock.

Enjoy!

WOW!! **LED** for Halogen! (Outlander Running Lights Upgrade)

Mitsubishi Outlander **LED** Daytime Running Lights

When we noticed one day that our right front daytime running light had burned out, Mrs. Maker and I decided to experiment with an LED replacement bulb.

Over the last few years, we've noticed that the vehicles in Hong Kong have been sporting increasingly bright lights, and we were curious to see how hard it would be to give our 2006 AWD Mitsubishi Outlander a bit of an inexpensive LED upgrade.

The first challenge was to figure out the bulb type, which we determined from taking a close-up photograph of the old bulb, which revealed that it was a 12v W5W type bulb.  

Cross-referencing this information with the Mitsubishi Outlander Owners Manual (we were lucky enough to receive one from the previous owner), we determined that there were six W5W light bulbs in the vehicle:

Running Lights:

1) Left front running light

2) Right front running light

Side Turn Signal:

3) Left side turn signal

4) Right side turn signal


License Plate:

5) Left license plate light


6) Right license plate light

Enter Amazon

Once I knew what type of bulb to get, it was then an easy task to go to Amazon.com, select the type of LED replacement for a W5W I wanted and order them.  I ended up getting a set of 10 W5W LED replacements so I could have a couple of spare units, just in case.

Once the order arrived, it was a matter of less than an hour to get the new LED replacement bulbs into service, and the following video records the event.

Enjoy!

Help a Maker Out?

Did you see anything in this video you want for yourself?  If the answer is yes, consider using one of the link(s) below to buy it directly from amazon.com.  When you do, I will get a small, but very encouraging commission that keeps me going!

Bill of Materials

10PCS AutoLite Super Bright 194 T10 2825 Led Bulb, Interior Car Light Bulbs 168 W5W, Xenon White 6000K with CANBUS Error Free, Best for License Plate Light Led Dome Light Map Truck Door Courtesy Light
https://amzn.to/39RvSQp

Trident Silicone Grease Jar
https://amzn.to/2R2japl

My Wife **PIRATED** My Demo Battery!

My Wife **PIRATED** My Demo Battery!

I was so pleased with myself..little did I know what was going to happen! 

Having just completed the preliminaries for a battery demonstration, I was foolish enough to show my new toy to Mrs. Maker! The "toy" in question was a series of batteries taped to individual pieces of paper with both their model numbers and their voltages, or state of charge clearly noted.  My intention was to use them to show people how to measure battery voltages, and what the different voltages meant. But, like I said, silly me! Mr. Maker took one look at my teaching aid and said "My car door fob isn't working". 

Silly me!  How could I not have known?  After years of marriage, I have determined that a simple statement of fact on the part of my wife actually means she wants me to DO something, and usually that something runs along the lines of "Please stop futzing around with the [fun thing] you are playing with and go fix the [boring thing]." 
Luckily, in this case, I was able to integrate my original BATTERY DEMO presentation into a KEYLESS CAR DOOR FOB BATTERY CHANGE demonstration, and record the whole thing! 

This helped me to complete MY "more fun thing" while fixing the "less fun thing".  It was a win-win!
 

I can't thank this VLOGGING stuff enough!  It enables me to re-approach things that aren't that much fun - and make them a LOT more fun by turning them into a tutorial! 

It's helping me get much more done, because it's such a great motivator!

HELP THE MAKER OUT?

Did you see anything in this video that you want for yourself? If yes, please use one of the link(s) below to buy it directly from amazon.com, because if you do, I get a small (but very encouraging) commission!

VIDEO BILL OF MATERIALS

Duracell - 2032 3V Lithium Coin Battery - Long Lasting Battery - 2 Count (CR2032)
https://amzn.to/35VNCYN

4-Pack Energizer 3 Volt Lithium Button Battery for Directed Electronics 598t Remote Control Transmitters and Other Uses (CR2025)
https://amzn.to/399FPII

UNI-T UT33A+ UT33B+ UT33C+ UT33D+ Digital Multimeter AC DC Voltage Current Resistance +2mF Capacitance NCV Tester with LCD Backlight (UT33C+)
https://amzn.to/2MunVGO

I Used BRASSO To Make My Yellow Headlights Clear Again!

My wife, the reason for the existence of MY MAN THE MAKER, has been complaining about the headlights on our car for quite some time now. Our car is a 2006 Mitsubishi Outlander, and we like it a lot, but the headlights look terrible - they are yellow and frosty and generally unsightly. Mrs. Maker is also a bit worried that the headlights don't shine as brightly as they should because the lenses are so messed up. So, after performing a little bit of research on the Internet, I hit upon using BRASSO as a means of cleaning up yellowed, crazed and otherwise sunburned headlight lenses. Figuring that I couldn't mess them up any worse than they already were, I bought a can of BRASSO for HKD38.00 (USD4.50) and set myself up to give the headlights a good polish. If you also want to try BRASSO on your headlight lenses, give us a hand and use this link: https://amzn.to/2sC4Ifq This video documents me polishing the headlights to crystal clear using just BRASSO, a rag, some masking tape (optional), some scissors and a bottle of water. The results were fantastic. Mrs. MMTM and I are very pleased with the outcome of this little project and we plan to polish the headlights once a year.

The Little Red Pickle - A Car for Fun and Profit

Hello,

Vego and I picked up an exciting little Daihatsu YRV 2001 TURBO the other day.  Upon some reflection, I decided to christened the car The Little Red Pickle (TLRP) because I didn't know if it was going to turn out to be a lemon or a plum.  After all, we met it, inspected it and decided to purchase it within just a few hours on the same day.  The car will be 15 years old soon.

When we first encountered the LRP, the car had quite a few problems (goodie!).  This gave us the negotiating power to buy the car for a very reasonable sum from a very reasonable man, a fellow University professor here in Hong Kong.

I was then tasked by Vego (who will the be primary driver of this vehicle once I have made it 100%) to undertake the (fun for me) challenge of researching, co-ordinating the fixing of and final certification of this vehicle as safe and in tip-top shape for her, the most important thing in my life.

Researching a 15 year old car that is no longer in production is a challenge in an of itself.  There are almost NO 3rd party (after market) producers of parts for this car.  The car (almost) pre-dates the explosion of the Internet, so there is very little information available online.

What Great Fun!

In the end, it wasn't as challenging as it might have been due to the fact that I was lucky and leveraged the power of the Internet to gather to myself the right information and relationship assets to ease my task.  

In under a week, I was able to collect all of the knowledge, assets and other stuff needed to resolve the many issues (great and small) that were afflicting this little, fun car.  

Now Vego and I are in the final stages of testing and certifying that this vehicle is safe for her to drive on a daily basis.  I have documented the story of the LRP and my adventures in bringing it back to 100% in a separate blog: http://2001-daihatsu-yrv-turbo.blogspot.hk/

As of today, I have resolved all of the mechanical problems.  The only issues that remain are purely cosmetic, which I am arranging to have resolved very shortly by having the car detailed (interior) and buffed/coated/waxed (exterior).

g.
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