Picking up my Dirtbag 2000 SLE this weekend

[redfury]

So, the rear drivers side is filling up with water because the drain can't handle the load when the car is tilted biasing it to the left rear. No matter how I park, it's on an incline, so I have a sealing problem with the sunroof itself. I'm pulling the headliner down partially so that I can reset the entire assembly so that when the glass comes up, it's sealing as tightly in the back as it does in the front...right now the back isn't as tight as the front and I get wind noise from it while driving.

Unfortunately, the mosquito's just peaked and I can't walk to my mailbox without coming back paler than when I left the house...if you catch my drift. They all like to hang out underneath the leaves of my Maple tree until they detect someone and they fly in for the attack....there's so many of them you'd swear you could hear the collective wings beating like an approaching Cessna.

I may have to relocate in order to do the work...

[MKMike]

The driver's rear floor filling up is probably from the front sunroof tubes separating on the driver's side, behind the front kickpanel.
The water runs into the back seat footwell even if you park on a flat surface.

I hope you've read the sunroof leaks thread on the 2000+ sticky post thread in the 2000-2005 forum.

The door seals can also leak but on my cars, the hands-down-worst, multi-gallon leaks were from the sunroof tubes.

Some more info in my linked post http://www.pontiacbonnevilleclub.com/fo ... 48632.html .

[redfury]

Yeah, I have already addressed the front tubes..had the whole dash out and connected them proper. I've pretty much determined that it's just simply the sunroof glass not sealing well enough due to a rack alignment issue. I've got the headliner hanging and am planning on doing the adjustment as soon as the weather lightens up a bit and I can get rid of a few thousand mosquitoes.

[redfury]

Started a new thread on the sunroof. However, I believe it's simply a bad glass seal as it leaks to whichever side is facing downhill...all 4 corners could handle the load, the single corner cannot by itself. At the moment, I cannot pour water onto the roof without the interior getting drenched. I'm thinking of pulling the headliner completely out again and working on a resolution to this.

UPDATE: I've determined that the sunroof glass seal is at fault. The splice has a 1/8" gap and cleaning the rubber seal netted me a paper towel full of blackness. The rubber surface has broken down and any seal I might have had is compromised by the fractures in the surface, not to mention the shrinkage. I rubbed a liberal dose of coconut oil on it ( everyone is doing it! ) and reinstalled it for now. I also recovered the shade, so in the event that I decide to seal the glass shut for a while, it's done.

[redfury]

Okay, so I'm in need of some information...I've only got about half of my instrument panel lights..and of course the speedo is one of them that's out. I was under the impression that the dash had LED lighting...am I mistaken? I can't seem to find any info on bulb replacement in the FSM.

[Luxrain]

I know with my century it was bulbs. There's a rebuild kit for the cash assembly's I'd do the whole thing in one go

[redfury]

Yeah, I'm looking into all this, have the dash cluster tore apart on my kitchen table...stupid bulbs soldered in...who's bright idea was it to put non serviceable incandescent bulbs in a cluster when they were already doing most of it with LEDs?!

I found a source online that sells 12v pre resistored LED's. http://www.allelectronics.com/make-a-st ... eds/1.html

I think I'll just order a few of these and solder them in. If the whole project goes belly up, I'll just get another working cluster and transfer over my information center.

[nos4blood70]

It's the mileage chip that you want to transfer. Make sure you find another SLE cluster, or maybe a higher optioned SE one.

[Luxrain]

its called every *dang* incandescent bulb in the interior of our car, theres alot that just burn out.... only EASY one to replace is the shifter bulb for the console....... just plug and play after nearly breaking the tabs

[redfury]

Well, I ordered the bulbs, I will report back on how well they work or not. Since they aren't coming from an Ebay sourced supplier, I suspect they should be decent quality. The last time I bought LED bulbs from Ebay, my cruise control wouldn't work and I had to modify the sockets to get them to fit. Apparently the tail light circuit fed back into the brake circuit and tripped the cruise function off.

[redfury]

Got the bulbs today...awesome. Not so awesome? Trying to figure out what side of the original bulb is positive and which is negative. I will document with pics if I figure this out....grrr.

[redfury]

Bulbs replaced, but apparently I managed to damage the dang LCD on the bottom of the DIM and cracked it causing the bottom half of the display to corrupt. So, I have to source another cluster for that DIM module. For a second I thought I had damage the circuitry, but after an hour of searching and tracing and looking, I realize that there was no way for my bulb replacements to affect it and looked at the module more closely...that's when I discovered the crack in the display on the edge where the connections are...grrr! I was going to have this all wrapped up and write out a how to on it today.

[redfury]

So, got another gauge cluster for $20...reassembled and disappointment ensued. Apparently the LED's just don't put out enough dispersed light to light up the gauges much, but the needles are blue! So, I ordered a different type of LED..a cluster of 3 SMD's which I will install on the other clusters board. I will document and do a write up if I am successful in upgrading this.

[MKMike]

Thanks for updating your progress.
Hope your next LEDs do the trick.

[nos4blood70]

What color are the gauges with blue LEDs?

[redfury]

Dark. Too dark to tell color.

[nos4blood70]

Just so you know, it's the red filter that makes them appear red. Blue LEDs might give you purple gauges if you install brighter ones.

[redfury]

that's what I was hoping for. I have red LED's as well as white ones, but since the Blue ones didn't really work, I decided that trying the others was pointless.

[redfury]

Success! So the 12v triple SMD LED's are plenty bright...I still have spot in my vision from them. The range of light emission is wide band, so it fills the gauge cluster with light and plenty of it is going to the needles, plus there is a small amount of dimming possible as well. The gauges appear to still be mostly red in color, which isn't too much of a disappointment. I'm just happy that I'll be able to read the gauges and not just the needles. I'm going to take pictures and do the install tomorrow ( today ) since it's too late to monkey with it...I'm going to bed folks! See you tomorrow!

[redfury]

Working on smoking out my tail lights....pretty happy with the way they darkened but still let light in/out. VHT Nightshades is the way to go...totally worth it. I've put 2 coats of Krylon Triple Thick Crystal Clear Glaze on what I've done so far. I still need to buff it out with polishing compound, but I want to let it cure thoroughly before I put anything to them. I sanded with 1000 grit between coats to get rid of any imperfections ( tiny bug that leaped into the fresh clear coat ). 2 coats of Night shades, 2 coats of clear. I concentrated the night shades a bit on the parts that had delaminated a bit heavier to help hide that fact and I sealed them with permatex windshield and glass sealant, though I'm not sure how much I really care for that product.


*I haven't done the drivers side lens yet