Perils of Open-Top Motoring

No protection from the elements: They’ve been resurfacing the local highway which of course means putting down ‘loose gravel’ on the road. Driving along at a reasonable speed, a car blazes by me, kicks up a stone and it hits me in the head. Ouchie!

Extra stinkification: The local feed lot smell has been overwhelming recently. You don’t realise how much stink protection the hard top gives until you’re faced with cow gases in your face. Yowie!

Essential equipment for open top motoring: sunglasses, full face helmet, nose clips ??

OBC is currently reading 28.3, was 29.0 when I left the house this morning – gotta love that!

Roundabouts – I Love ‘Em!

But it seems not everyone does….. traffic chaos in La Jolla. For those who don’t get it, the Tribune has even provided a handy guide to how to use them!


Roundabout

Reminds me of my first road trip to Sweden… coming back into Harwich, we drive off the boat, get out of the port and come to a huge roundabout. The car in front – Swedes in a Volvo (what else!) – immeadiately goes the wrong way round it. I go the correct way and of course we meet at the exit, we all laugh and wave at each other and I let him through first. As I turn off, I see at least one more Volvo come round the wrong way…. I bet the police love that roundabout.

That Time of Year Again

Now that the desert temps have come down to just about perfect, the dirt people are back. I have no problem with that, the local economy certainly appreciates them, but it does cause some driving problems.

When I go home on a Friday night the line of RVs, trailers etc is many miles long, sometimes bunched up, otherwise with a few decent gaps. I typically drive home at about 75mph but the mean speed for everyone else must be 85+ so when it comes time to overtake a group of slow vehicles I pull out, go nicely by but because of the spacing there is usually some idiot up my exhaust pipe before I am done. So do I push it up to 90 and get by the next RV or do I sit there watching the driver behind get more and more pissed off? And if I pull into a gap, there’s a good chance I’ll be sat there doing 60/65 for a long time as a stream of fast moving cars give no chance to pull out. It all makes for an stressful ride home.

Stripes At Last

Carrie went to the local vinyl installer on Friday and he did a great job. He asked what we paid for the stripes and said he would have made them and installed them for $60. So I have him designing me something for the side, I shall be interested to see what he (actually its his cute French assistant) comes up with….






Recent Mods

Completed my final mod today, got the auto-up window circuit installed. I wasn’t able to do it using the ‘blind’ method but I did manage it without removing the downtubes, just moved them out of the way a little, so it took very little time at all. Its good to have my window circuit back.

Only mod left is the stripes and I’ll be getting a local professional installer to do those for me in the next week or two. In the meantime, here’s some pictures of the latest and greatest:

Wet Okole Seat Covers


Seat Covers  Seat Covers

XM Direct

XMDirect

Nodding Bulldog

British Bulldog   British Bulldog  British Bulldog

Some Progress

[Comment posting is now fixed]
Had some success with my projects at the weekend, got the XM Direct unit installed and I have to say I am very pleased with it. For some reason, the radio isn’t yet activated so I haven’t been able to actually tune in to any channels but the preview channel comes in nice and clear! Had one minor scare during installation – the top stopped working, it would not go past sunroof mode. After much panic and swearing I read the manual which said to check the position of the parcel shelf. I did and sure enough I had nudged it off its position and I guess some sensor picked that up. Phew!

I had tried the “blind install” method for the window circuit in the morning but to no success and so decided to do it the hard way. The screws holding the downtubes have changed and I didn’t have a T40 screwdriver so decided to leave it until Sunday. Sunday came and we had torrential rain with thunder and lightning all day so I didn’t get to do anything. Hopefully I’ll get to that next weekend.

Projects

Now that I’m back from the funeral its time to get on with the projects that seem to be hanging around, no more “its too hot” excuses:

  • Bonnet Stripes: the new stripes came whilst I was away but I’m going to find a professional to do the installation this time
  • Auto-Window Up circuit: been putting this off as it looks a lot trickier on the ’05 than on the ’02.
  • XM Direct: couldn’t remove the cover that is hiding the CD changer port before but I know the trick now (and have large hacksaw!) so think this is doable. I still don’t know how I will get the cable from the boot to the antenna on the dashboard, might be for the local audio pro to do.
  • Nodding Dog: Whilst in England my sister gave me a nodding British bulldog to sit on the dash (in lieu of the hula girl) but I fear it is too large to sit there

Well, plenty to keep me busy, hopefully I can knock these off pretty soon.