Soon. Very Soon

The Electrod is rapidly nearing comppletion. As you can see the trim has been reinstalled and she's all lit up. Lighting has been a bit of a thorn in our sides but we've finally made it thru. Who would have thought that we'd have any problems with our wiring harness donated from a late model 1971 Chevy pickup truck? It would seem that even at a mere half the age of the car, the 44 year old harness still had some corrosion in the connectors and switches. While stil functional with 70's era sealed beam bulbs, our new fangled LEDs jus didn't pull enough amps to overcome the poor connections. So after little carefull scraping and polishing and a new dimmer switch later the headlights are ready to rock.

Taillghts were another story all together. the first step was overcoming a failed LED type flasher for the turn signals. All of us who convert from incandescants to LED are familiar with this saga. Once the flasher was replaced the signals worked great. Right up until we turned the park lights on. Sad face. We also noted that with the signals on, the park lights would also flash dimly. This is typically indicative of a poor ground, so after varifying and repairing every ground in the system, and still not having repaired this problem, I was left scratching my head. Whilst laying awake in bed one night it occured to me that the D in LED stands for Diode. IE current only flows thru them in one direction. So it couldn't be current back feeding as a result of a poor ground causing the problem. The problem came from the Park and Turn terminals in the tailights being shorted together by the bulb terminals themselves. Another modern convenience. Our new LED 1157 bulbs have oval shaped terminals to allow easy installation in modern strip terminal style sockets. Our taillights are reproduction 1959 Cadillac units have old school spring loaded round terminals. Those fancy new oval bulb terminals shorted em together. So, simple fix right? Install some plain ole 1157 incandescant bulbs. It seems new 1157 bulbs also have fancy oval terminals. So out we go, out back behind the shop digging thru every taillight in every relic on the property before finding four perfect 1157 bulbs, with good old fashioned round terminals in a 1977 Mercury we're currently using as a scrap metal receptacle.