Car super-washing weekend
September 8th, 2005 @ 9:18 by NormMonkey
From the clean-cars-r-us department:
So I cleaned my car last weeekend. Sounds like a real pile of fun, doesn’t it? Surprisingly, I spent two days (!) on this episode of fanatic sudsmanship.
SATURDAY
Without going into *too* much boring, lame detail, I basically spent the day on the interior of the car — well, with part of the day taken up by barbequeing food and taking rain breaks to watch TV episodes on DVD. After renting a steam cleaner early in the morning and trying it out on some sofa cushions and futons, I got started on the car.
I started by emptying the cabin of all its junk. Among the crap were prints of Google maps, various receipts, a cardboard drink tray of the sort fast-food places give you — that sorta thing. Then I took the two front seats out. This was so easy to do that I’m gonna keep the option in mind next time I have something big to transport. The geeky part of me wants to take the passenger seat out permanently and mount some kind of mobile computing platform there instead. I don’t even know what I want it to do — it’s just the idea that fascinates me.
I did at least two steam-cleaning passes on the seats and then steam-cleaned every upholstered and carpeted surface inside the cabin (except the roof, and the visors — I even did the tiny upholstered bits on the door panels!). I probably did five or six passes on the driver’s side floor carpet which was full of the kind of salt stains and dirt that only five years of Canadian winter can visit upon a car by way of boots.
I cleaned all the plastic areas inside the car first with soapy water, and then with Armour-all for that shiny UV protection it gives (what can I say — I like shiny). More soap and water to clean all the areas around the door-frame that seem to collect dirt and oily grime with gusto for later transmission onto your pant legs. I was pleasantly surprised at how much easier it is to clean the interior with the two seats out of the way.
Next I attacked the windows, first with Windex and afterward with soap and water once I noted that Windex leaves some kind of film that sunlight picks up on the windshield. Dish soap, on the other hand, leaves the windows as clean as… well, as clean as a drinking glass! No film!
Finally, just as darkness was setting in, I emptied the trunk (except for the subwoofer unit) and steam-cleaned all the carpeting. Then I put about half of the stuff that came out of there back in and that was it for the day. It was too dark and I was too tired of car cleaning to put the seats back in, despite the fact that I had to return the steam cleaner the next morning — an activity for which a driver’s side car seat is pretty crucial, you realize.
SUNDAY
I spent today on the car’s exterior. The day started with getting up fifteen minutes earlier than planned to reinstall the driver’s seat so that I could take my rented steam-cleaner back to the store. Fifteen minutes may not sound like much, but when you value sleep like I do, it’s really annoying — especially on a weekend. The line-up tool at the tool rental department of the store was incredible. Everybody who rented something for 24 hours this day would actually get to use it for 48 because of Labour Day Monday.
When I (finally) got home I started on the car’s exterior with a pass using the pressure washer. Then I prepared a bucket of soapy water and cleaned everything except the tires. That took awhile, especially getting rid of all the bug-guts stuck on the front. By the time this was done it was time for lunch, and a quick DVD break. When I got back I did another, quicker pass with the soap and water, and then a rinse with the power washer. I dried the car with the chamois. I re-cleaned all the windows with soap and water. Finally, I did the front and back bumpers, and the door handles, with Armour-all. Mmmm, shiny.
By this time I was really happy with how everything looked and I was tired of cleaning the car so I decided not to wax the outside at this time. Instead I snapped a few pictures. Next weekend I’m cleaning the house and the weekend after that my sister is visiting, plus I need to prepare for a trip to California, so the waxing will have to wait awhile. By that time the car will probably be in need of another exterior washing.
There ends the saga of the car super-washing weekend. AZROLB heaves a sigh of relief. But the post isn’t over yet! What about Monday?! I can sum up Monday with three words: 1) DVDs; 2) food; 3) sleep.
LABOUR DAY MONDAY
Well, that’s not quite true. I spent a little bit more time with the car on Monday. You see, ever since I accidentally broke the dome light in my car a year or two ago, I’ve had this plan to embed some blue LEDs in the roof. The plan involves a blue EL strip across the middle (stretching between the driver’s door and the front passenger’s door) and four blue LEDs positioned above each of the passenger seats.
The hole in the roof where the dome light control used to be will be occupied by a small metal plate, spray-painted to match the interior, and containing a slider switch (to control whether the lights activate when the doors are opened) as well as a toggle switch (to switch the lights on or off regardless of the door). Most cars have a single tri-position switch: OFF, DOOR, ON. I think more buttons and knobbies are better, so I’m gonna have two.
Today I was planning to make some progress in setting this up. I started by testing the EL strip on a 12V power source to see what happens. It glowed. Woohoo! Then I tested the blue LEDs. They glowed. Woohoo! Then I smelled something burning. Ah, crap! I got out the multimeter and it turns out that my 12VDC power source puts out around 17VDC. I blew the resistor, and maybe the blue LEDs as well. Doh!
Then I took the multimeter out to the car to try and figure out which wires leading to the dome light were which. After a futile search to get any voltage to register on any combination or permutation of the wires, I checked the fuse and — after retrieving the repair manual to figure out which fuse… it was the “BODY” fuse for those following along at home — discovered it was blown. The manual also told me which wires were which for the dome light, but with the blown dome light fuse (I checked to see if there was anything else important on that fuse, but there isn’t really) and the blown resistor on the blue LED string, I decided to call it a day.
Maybe I’ll play with that some more this weekend if the house cleaning goes well. In the meantime, here ends another overly wordy post from the mind and memory of the NormMonkey.
Cheerio.
