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Thinking About Getting One Of These...

by Bitter, May 17, 2009 in Toyotas that aren’t Corollas

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What kind of lamp is that? Looks pretty darn bright!

What kind of lamp is that? Looks pretty darn bright!
one of these...

 

http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=260633502947&ssPageName=STRK:MEWNX:IT

you can purchase direct from the seller in quantities larger than one. 2 for $30 shipped, 4 for $55, etc. I've got an order in for 4 more. one for me and 3 for other people. if all 4 of those are the same color/quality then I'll get a few more and setup footwell lights in the celica. they're very easy to take apart, the ends of the tubes pop off and you can just use the bare board or chain the boards together or re-house them however you want. yes, its pretty bright in my trunk now....its actually a usable amount of light!

ebay page says it draws 4W and is as bright as a 30W bulb, in reality its about as bright as one of those twin tube coleman flourescent camping lights that runs on 2x 6V lantern batteries. so they're not far off on how bright, but it has the cold light of flourescent so it seems brighter. its plumbed into where a 5W bulb used to be so its perfectly fine.

need new rear brake backing plates, almost totally rusted away and worried the parking brakes will become a blender inside the drums. toyota parts online shows the for $170 EACH! OUCH! they call it an assembly, which means I can probably only buy them with the shoes AND the plate. default_sad looking for used later. FISH! you should have kept that XRS, I could have used those rear brake parts damnit.

Doh! Yeah, I would have, if the insurance company didn't want an outrageous amount for it. I'm sure I'll be kicking myself in a few months.

called local dealer, $235 list, $196 EACH my cost for JUST the plates!!! nothing else comes attached. holy hell, I asked him if they were made of special japanese steel, he laughed and said they would need to be ordered in possibly from outside the US.

default_blink $235 each, list! That's totally insane.

yes, it is my good chum. someone in cali says they have them, pursuing that but they're slow to reply to me. guy in washington sent me photo's of rotors. DOH!

Looks like I lucked out and got them for $75 each from a forum...assuming they actually come. they look near perfect too, thinking about ways to protect them from rusting out on me 10 years later...chrome?

Yeah man, Chrome FTW!

Seriously, best options are to chemically treat the metal with one of those high performance primers (anti-corrosive pigments). Designed to greatly slow the rate of diffusion of water and oxygen to the target surface, so you might be able to hit that 10 year mark. But I'm not 100% certain that it will take the heat-cycling and corrosive brake dust bath that it is likely to see over that period of time.

But seeing how expensive these are - maybe chrome plating is not a bad idea default_biggrin

one industrial place is $250 minimum for 'hard chrome' and they said thats not what I want, so I asked them where they would suggest I go. you got any suggestions around chicago? I'll do some more e-mailing and make some calls tomorrow maybe. I can prep them myself with the bead blaster cabinet at work with glass bead.

Yeah, "hard chrome" or industrial chrome is overkill for that setup - more for wear resistance and oil retention than corrosion resistance. I'd even entertain powder coating - I'm mean they already powder coat many calipers - so you know they can take some heat and stand up to that corrosive area.

As for shops that can handle platings and coatings in your area - I've heard of CMWerks, Lo-Ko, and Pro-TeK from other owners (MR2 and Supra) - they had nothing but praise for those shops. But that was 2-3 years ago at the most recent - not sure how they are of if they are still around.

Thanks

so....the air horn died. the horn part, got really weak and then tooted once and then nothing

So I 'borrowed' the 'low tone' from the 2 tone airhorn setup I got Aunty Tracey, I had used the high tone on her Capri (and snip its loud!) and had the low tone left over. well my compressor and wiring were fine, so I hooked up this trumpet, found a good spot and temporarily installed it with a ziptie and boy does that trumpet PLAY! its even louder than it was before if you can imagine that. the stebel compressor really moves air, its almost freight train tone but emergency vehicle volume. its sniping insane and I love it even more!!

Sweet! I can only image. Pretty cool, didn't know you had an airhorn setup - that has got to be insanely loud.

Replacement horn is next on my list. OEM horn is pathetically weak - the 2009 Matrix is a bit louder than the 2003 Matrix, but still pretty weak compared to others on the market. The FIAMM one on the Corolla is started to weaken, for some reason, might go with something different the next time around.

I'll try to get a sound clip, totally worth the $20 the kit will cost you from amazon.

piezo trumpet and 'low' tone from a cheapo $20 airhorn kit with the stebel high power compressor.

Nice, that's pretty loud!! Sure to get someone's attention.

yea, very very hard for anyone to say 'I never hear you honk' if I get into an accident where I was on the horn as they were going to hit me. I use it ALL the time in the city and for absent minded drivers around here. when my father was in town I was rounding a corner from one street to another with a business driveway right on it. woman starts to pull out infront of me and I instantly lay on the horn. she FROZE like a deer in headlights and slammed the brake, her passenger who had not yet buckled up knocked her head on the dash LOL.

also great when picking up people from the airport 'yea I'll just honk when I get near...no no you can't miss me.'

really, get one. $20 and an hour of time is soooooo worth it.

Ha Ha! Nice. What happened, had to replace the windshield, fix a leak?

it cracked when I went down to the tail of the dragon. pulled into my moms driveway, popped the hood to check fluids after a near non-stop 10 hour drive, didn't close the hood totally (left it on the safety latch), went inside to take a leak and was going to come right back out and push it closed (it was hot to touch!), laid down and woke up 4 hours later to a big crack across the windshield. stress from heat and a small stone chip at the base below the wiper blade came together and boned me. replacement only cost $200...but the guys kind of did a so-so job. I have a few speckles of black sealer on my dash that I'm not happy about and the front of the dash gets a little vibration around 6800RPM in 1st sometimes. nothing I can't fix.

Oh and I used my horn yesterday to clear a parking spot out, woman hopped in her car and was just sitting there for like 3 minutes. TOOOT TOOOT, parking spot opens up.

HA! Yeah, that horn is definitely on my list. I don't even use my horn anymore, people can't hear it, just yelling out the window is more effective.

Sucks about the windshield cracking like that - not too much you can do about it, the Celica has a pretty large windshield up front, if you are unlucky and have a few chips in the right places - new windshield time.

A loud horn is like magic around here. it gets snip done!

trying to decide on winter wheels/tires combo.

15x6 steels with....

195/60

205/65

the 195/60 is stock GT size and the speedo will be spot on. the 205/65 would give me about an inch extra side wall (and about an inch higher off the ground) which is beneficial since I've managed to pack the front mouth with snow more than once. HOWEVER the speedo will read 3mph slower than my real speed at 60 (would be going 63). should be ample room in the wheel wells too...

now, if I am going with the 205/65 it would be an all season Dunlop SP60 which does great in snow...if I do 195/60 I'll get a General Altimax Artic snow tire (I'll price that through work, see if I can beat $64).

TOO MANY VARIABLES, I CAN'T DECIDE!!

What should I do? Be my guiding light default_laugh

That is a really tough one. There are pros and cons with both, unfortunately - can't look into a crystal ball and see how this wintertime will turn out.

A smaller, thinner tire would punch down through snow to the pavement more readily than a wider tire. Also a dedicated snow tire would handle ice slicked roads better than any all-season. Downside with the smaller tire is that you don't get as much ground clearance, thinner side wall, and the tendency of crunching down through the snow pack can get you stuck faster (ie, if you got stuck down to the axles or there is slush under the snow crust).

The wider, taller tire would tend to ride on the snow than punch through it. Extra ground clearance would be beneficial, as well as an aggressively tread tire to help scoop out deep snow. Downside is that you have to constantly remind yourself that the speedo is off, granted 3MPH is not much, but if your brain is on autopilot and you are already cruising 5-10MPH over, that could attract unwanted attention. Also you might run into traction issues on ice slicked roads - as the aggressive tread won't help you there, need a soft rubber compound and heaving siping to wick that water layer away.

You'll definitely have more traction characteristics from a dedicated snow tire - especially if you can get them cheap (hard to beat Tirerack's price of $64) and the roads have conditions that allow the tire to work. But if you expect that you'll get more snow and slush than ice this winter, you might find the larger tire more useful. Larger tire will act like a paddle tire, and muscle its way over and through deeper snow and slush. You gain a slight increase in ride height (1 5/16" or so), but sometimes that is all the difference between rolling and getting stuck. A narrow winter tire will have a little tougher time in deep snow and slush, trying to pump out all that slush and snow.

Example - I had a set of Continental snow tires I've used in the past on one of my BB Mopars. Snow cover was about 6-7 inches deep, but the snow plows didn't skim any of it off, since there was freezing rain coming later in the day. They just left the snow in place, and sprinkled sand/salt mix to help with traction. That Mopar could not drive down that road straight on those snow tires and once I did find traction, the car was rooted at that spot and I had to rock it out. Front tires were basically plowing the roads and the rears couldn't pump enough snow/slush out of the way to bite down to the pavement. Turn back around, tossed on some Goodyear All-Seasons with decent tread - 235 width vs the 205 width of the skinner snows. More tire spinning than the snows, but I was able to get to where I needed to go. Now if they skimmed the road and salted it, then the ice sheeted over that - then the snow tires would have been the better choice. Given that you are from one of the states that know snow/ice the best - I'd assume you'd run into a similar situation on the road - more snow and slush than black ice. If there was ice, probably get hit with salt fairly soon, unless you were in the boonies.



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