someone fill me in here please, cannot access facebook @ work. I only find an article about them filing chapter 11 in feb (didn't know that either!).

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<!-- m --><a class="postlink" href="http://www.change.org/petitions/commonwealth-of-virginia-allow-safe-lane-splitting-in-traffic-and-at-red-lights">http://www.change.org/petitions/commonw ... red-lights</a><!-- m -->

I have little hope that this will actually pass, but glory be if it did. Of course, it might be dicey the first couple of years before people got used to motorcycles lane splitting.

for all of you with kids, these look like hilarious fun. for all of you without kids, these look like hilarious fun. i'm prepared to completely ignore that the max weight is 140. PLEASE RELIEVE ME OF MY FUNDS

driveway drift-ah battlesaaaaaan!
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I'm at my wits end with a headlight problem on my XJ and all signs are pointing towards it needing some routine, yet "custom" work to be fixed. I am by no means an electrician, so I'm hoping to find a good shop or individual local Jeep Jedi that can build a new harness for me for not too much $$$. If this were earlier in the summer I could likely tackle it myself, but I'm working on summer coursework now and don't have the time or energy to go through all this again.

Backstory
The XJ Cherokee is well known to have a deficient headlight system from the factory - the wiring harness is subpar (too thin a guage) leading to ultra-dim lights. I replaced mine with a Putco H4 HD Harness and a set of Autopal H4 E-Code Housings, with Sylvania Silverstar H4/9003 bulbs. The harness simply draws power from the factory headlight harness and relays it to each headlight through heavier guage wiring; each socket has a ground wire going to the body.

Long story short, within about 6 months of the install my driver's side headlight started to dim well below even the factory crappy level. Some steps I took:

- I replaced the bulb from the supplied Autopal bulb to the Sylvania, no change.
- I moved the power source for the harness from the battery to the fuse box so that it is more protected, no change.
- I re-worked the grounds - re-sanded their mounting points on the body to remove some corrosion, cleaned them up, remounted them and surrounded them with a top coat of paint to keep out further corrosion (I worried this could affect the grounds but read from a few sources that this is OK to do (?)), no change.
- The relays/sockets were tested with a multimeter and showed they were getting ~12V, at least at the time they were checked.
- Finally, I replaced the driver's side housing with a new Autopal unit, figuring there might be some corrosion on the metal part of the housing itself where the bulb clips in and replaced the bulb - this actually fixed it for a few weeks until today, leading me to believe that it isn't a ground or current issue, rather a faulty hardware issue.

So, I've done everything I know how to do and still I'm without properly functioning headlights :? A little more reading lead me to this Amazon review for the Putco harness, seen in the above link:

Quote:I purchased this harness to utilize a better power path to my bulbs directly from my car's battery. At first glance, it looks well made, the wiring is of decent quality as is the jacket holding it all together.

The relays are in a word, garbage. The relays used are similar to those found here: Pilot PL-RY1 Auxiliary Lighting Accessory Remember this when you need to replace them, and you WILL need to replace them within a few months. The relays are similar to those used in some Hondas as fuel pump relays.

The connectors for the bulbs are also of questionable quality. No weather seals and the terminals are made of very low quality metal. Just going over a bump is enough to have the bulbs flicker on and off which will only shorten the lifespan of the bulbs as well as cause an unsafe driving experience.

After a few months of dealing with this (and after replacing both relays with those I listed above) I needed to cut into the wiring harness and I soldered in Bosch relays and pigtails IMC Audio 10 Pack 30/40 AMP Relay Harness Spdt 12v Bosch Style and some new H4 sockets with 12ga wiring (purchased elsewhere) Since then, the bulbs have been working fine.

Quote:I had a very frustrating day when I decided to fix this one. I ended up with 4 relays (one for high beams, one for lows on each light) and still had the problem so I took it all out and put it back in and so on. It ended up being a bad relay - the one for the high-beams! The relay wouldn't ground correctly unless the high-beams were on. Since it wasn't grounded correctly it somehow affected the low-beam to shine less bright.

I figured it out when I was blind with anger and randomly testing wires. With the high-beam relay disconnected from the + battery I ran a wire directly from the light's high-beam wire to the negative battery terminal and whaddya-know, the low beam brightened right up. It just meant that there was a loss of connection between the relay and the grounding wire when the relay wasn't switched on. I never would have thought that a bad high-beam relay ground would affect the light output of the low-beams.

So with a properly operating relay, the original set up works great

Performance Autosport Inc.'s 12th Annual Open House Car Show is coming up on Saturday July 13th. That is all.

Gonna cancel my personal cell, tired of carrying 2 phones around and it will save me $50 a month. Not to mention I have an S3 as my work phone as well.

So, FS: 16GB Samsung Galaxy S3, White, asking price for the phone is $240.

No scratches/dings/cracks, been in a case most of its life. Charger, original box, booklets included.

Short notice as in next 3 day!!!!

Anyone know a detailer in nova are who can help w some paint detail? Basically my car is swirled like crazy ( it's black ) and I have a photo shoot Friday!

Or any DIY help from you detail guys that I can try?!?!?


Thanks!

Saw this on Miata.net and thought it was interesting.

What cars/motorcycles have you considered buying but decided against for reasons other than "I didn't have an extra $20k sitting around"?

For example, I would have bought a Subaru BR-Z if it weren't for my already owning a Miata. Decided I didn't need two similarly-sized/shaped sports cars and instead went the hatchback route.

Also, I would have bought an RX-8 if it weren't for the finicky motors and poor MPG.

Hey MM, Anyone need an older smart phone? Maybe for data logging or to play around with Android? It works great but at the end started unmounting the SD card every few days. I think that might be the card and not the phone, I took it out and put it back in trying to use the SD card for something else and then it started doing that dropping out. Phone is the black case version in very good condition, Sprint Network with clean ESN. No damage to screen and only the most minor rubs on the body, mostly case wear. A Seidio Convert case with belt clip, OEM wall charger and the original box are included. Looks like similar packages are going for around $80 shipped on ebay, if you are interested PM me and we can work it out. :thumbup: