Been busy moving to a new house in Santa Cruz, so haven't made too much progress on the car. On the plus side, we live about a mile from the beach now, with a sweet bike trail that takes us straight there. On the downside, it's only a one car garage. Another plus, the lease doesn't forbid working on cars like the last place did! Another downside, there's not much room to stack very many broken cars on the property.
The only thing I've done to the car lately is add a pair of fog lights with some HID bulbs in them, to use when driving through the woods. I don't really like how they look, but I've hit a few deer with a few different cars, and don't want to do that again if I can avoid it. I prefer them hanging down rather than the GT grill, but I'm afraid that they will get broken. It might be cool to embed them into the airdam like a late 90s 5 series BMW, but we'll see. For now, it's just nice to light up the road.
In the process of moving, I discovered a pair of E-code front turn signal lenses in my parts stash! That's the Volvo equivalent of finding $5 in a pair of jeans you haven't worn in a while. Score!
Before:
After:
But they looked kind of dark and hideous, so I thought I'd try the same white paint that I used under my reverse lenses:
New After:
Much better! I love the look.
I also got some Ebay BBS center cap stickers. I imagined the red would look good against the white paint. But it didn't look that good after all:
The picture doesn't really do its hideousness justice. The gold looked totally out of place, and bummed me out. Plus, I want this car to look a little more OEM and less attractive to thieves, and bright red BBS logos didn't help that cause at all.
So I just now ordered a new set of stickers. I think the modern Volvo logo will look good on the more modern wheels, and help with the OEM non-flasy look I am after. Plus, I like the black, blue, and white look of the BMW centercaps, so hopefully these will bring that look back:
Photoshop looks aight:
Up next, I have a pile of parts that I need to install, such as HD motor mounts, drive shaft support, timing belt, thermostat, airdam deflector thing... I also got a can of Tan interior paint, to help match all the various parts of the interior that have faded from the sun in varying degrees. I'll try and get to some of that in the coming weeks, as we struggle to unpack boxes and finish the move into our new house.
