My 1989 Crown Victoria.

[slack]

Amp Light with LED

I ran out of attachment space in the last message to address the AMP light and using an LED.

What I found so far is that the light actually stays on very very dim all the time from the voltage going to it with an LED light in the AMP light socket. I'm guessing the regular bulb requires more voltage to actually light it up than the LED so under normal operation the bulb would be off where as the LED shows a little bit of light.

I'm not too sure how I feel about it right now. I think I might go back to a regular bulb in the end because you can see the amp light on very dim while driving at night with the LED.

Here's a pic I tried to take of it so you can see it. I had to increase the brightness of it so it would show up in the image. Believe me, you can notice it in person even though it's faint. If it bothers you? That's up to you.

[BlackVic_P71]

Looks good. I have China LEDs and so far all the ones I've gotten will dim .


Sent from the crapper

[TecNickal]

Friend of mine with an 88 Squire put a Police inst. cluster in the car. It was DIM even on full bright with the incandescent bulbs. He installed White LED bulbs. WOW, it looks like yours. Very well Lit, almost modern like. I was very impressed. Nice job!

[87gtVIC]

Friend of mine with an 88 Squire put a Police inst. cluster in the car. It was DIM even on full bright with the incandescent bulbs. He installed White LED bulbs. WOW, it looks like yours. Very well Lit, almost modern like. I was very impressed. Nice job!

Did he swap the printed circuit? Part of the problem with the police units are that they contain two less lights as compared to the civilian units.

[slack]

Thanks everyone! I'm digging the LEDS.

Did he swap the printed circuit? Part of the problem with the police units are that they contain two less lights as compared to the civilian units.

Never knew that. Learned something new today! So all those 140mph speedometer clusters are all only two backing bulbs? I wonder why Ford decided on that.

So, hood painting round two has started!

Tonight after work I stripped the header panel's trim off, took that trim piece off of the hood, removed both the header panel and the hood from the car and sanded everything down once with 320 grit sandpaper. I never took a hood off by myself before (always had a second pair of hands) so that was a learnign experience. I used cardboard over the windshield first so that it wouldn't slide back into it and break it. After I got all the bolts off and lowered it down carefully. I put the cardboard over the fenders and was able to move it forward until I was able to pick it up and carry it into the backyard. It really wasn't as bad as I thought it would be. Just awkward.

Here's the header panel stripped of it's trim.


Here's the trim I removed. Everything is basically a philips screws. The hood ornament is held on bar a large trim nut. I just used some pliers to take it off. I left the headlight "buckets" in. They're a little rusty and could probably use a coat of paint anyway. (Plus, no one will see them if they're painted anyway).


Header panel off:


...and the header itself complete with sanding #1 done:


I wasn't able to get any pics that came out of the hood removal unfortunately. It's basically what I've posted in the previous painting reply. Bolts off and hood not on the car. It was around 9pm at this point and my phone doesn't have a flash.

[87gtVIC]

At least up until 89. 90/91 model speedometers I have no idea about them.

[VicCrownVic]

Same number of bulbs in the 90-91 140 cluster as the 85 mph cluster.
Getting blue, green, or white LEDs to work is just a simple bulb change. Other colors like red require much more work than the 89- clusters http://www.grandmarq.net/vb/showthre...l=1#post707401.

[87gtVIC]

Same number of bulbs in the 90-91 140 cluster as the 85 mph cluster.
Getting blue, green, or white LEDs to work is just a simple bulb change. Other colors like red require much more work than the 89- clusters http://www.grandmarq.net/vb/showthre...l=1#post707401.

The police units are missing two bulbs from the printed circuit like the 89 and down models?

[VicCrownVic]

The police units are missing two bulbs from the printed circuit like the 89 and down models?

No, sorry i'll clarify what I meant, the police and civi clusters both have 8 illumination bulbs and 11indicator/warning bulbs for 90-91.
On the civil unit the part numbers for the 2 layers of printed circuit are
F0AF-10K843-8C and
F0AF-10K843-AC
I'd have to take my dash apart to verify the same circuit is used on the police unit but, other than the illumination bulbs all having orange mounting sockets, I did not find any difference between the police and civi circuits.

Sorry to the OP, I'm slightly off topic. Your results do look good.

[slack]

Hood and Header Panel Paintinggggggggg

lol. It's cool new information is always good! Thanks!

Took a stab at painting the header panel and hood (again) today. Header panel came out great. Hood... the hood had it's moments. The clear coat killed me on it. I had it nice and shiney but then I went too heavy on the front half and caused streaks in the paint. I only had enough paint left to do a "dust" coating over the hood which made it loose it's shine but covered up the grossly uneven coat. Also I got drips. I went too heavy at times. I'll see if I can wet sand the hood with 1200 grit in a few weeks and get it to shine. I shouldn't have to worry about going through the clear coat, it has to have about 2 quarts of clear coat on it right now. Primer and clear coat I'm okay with the air gun. Clear is tricky. You have to put it on heavy but not streak it and not make it run. It's tough. (Especially for someone like me who's a complete novice)

Pics!

Here's the car stripped. (The pic I couldn't get last night)


Here's what the yard looked like with everything out to be painted


Header panel primered:


Base coat for the header panel and hood. I should mention that they were both sanded with 320 grit sand paper yesterday and both wetsanded after the header was primed with 600 grit.


Clear coat time. Header panel came out great! You can't see it in the picture but it shines nicely.


Hood.. not so much. The streaks were really bad. The shine where I didn't streak wasn't bad though.


Here's what it looked like in the end. That's about 1/2 a pint of clear dusted on top of all of it. I made sure to stay as even as possible over the whole hood when I did this.


It is what it is. It looks better than it did and I should have it on the car tomorrow morning. Hopefully it'll look good on the car. (Right now, it's been drying in the backyard for about 10 hours so far).

[87gtVIC]

I had some mega runs in my cars clear coat after it was painted years back. Painter took a paint stick and some 600grit paper and started working it out. Now if your runs run the entire length of the hood I would probably put masking tape on either side of the run (tight to it) and the run a razor blade over everything to level it out. After you get it somewhat close I would start hitting it with 1000 wet and up.

Regarding the dullness of the hood, just go over everything with 2000 grit once you have your runs sorted out and then compound the hell out of it. You need and electric one though. I use a cheap ryobi unit. Just cannot get the same result doing it by hand. She will shine up for you.

[slack]

Awesome! That's really good news to hear! I'll give it a week or so to dry 100% before I hit it with any wet sand though. If I can get a little more shine out of the hood, I plan on not painting it again if I don't have to. (The rest of the car needs a real paint job so any more effort and I might as well get the whole car painted. lol)

Here are the pics from the pieces getting installed and the final outcome: (so far)

Header panel installed:


Header panel trim installed:


A close up of the paint on the header panel. There's a little bit of orange peal, but not terrible.


...and finally here's the final product with the hood installed!


I think it looks MUCH better than it did!

Here's what it used to look like for comparison:

[87gtVIC]

Nice work mang.

[tjc78]

Looks much better. Good job.

[sly]