Post a picture you took today

IMG_20230925_195835464~3.jpg
Quick photo of the engine bay on the 96. Need to wish it was better but new Motorola's have sucky cameras. Miss my LGs.

Also, wtf is this connector go to? IMG_20230925_195813118_HDR.jpg
 
Irv said:
View attachment 627View attachment 628
Just messing around with night shots on my phone camera.
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What did you use for the climate control bulbs(ribbons?)? That illumination note is great!

If you take the OT button out you can scrape away the green film on the inside to make it light up white too, I converted one to blue once for a short lived experiment when I had 97 SHO gauges(also blue), same thing scraped it clear, just painted in blue after
 
XR7-4.6 said:
What did you use for the climate control bulbs(ribbons?)? That illumination note is great!

If you take the OT button out you can scrape away the green film on the inside to make it light up white too, I converted one to blue once for a short lived experiment when I had 97 SHO gauges(also blue), same thing scraped it clear, just painted in blue after
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Yeah, it's a neutral white LED ribbon wrapped once around the perimeter. I removed the clear diffuser inside as well.

I bought a 25' spool of ribbon for the instrument cluster after the strip Scott H sent me with his gauges wasn't quite bright enough and left behind the notorious dark spot by the trip odometer reset pin. I double-wrapped the new ribbon around the cluster and after seeing those results, I knew the ribbon was going to be the way to go for the SATC as well. A pair of 360° LED bulbs, especially with the quality and brightness of the ones available in the mid-2010s, would have had nothing on this.

In hindsight, I should have scraped the green behind the OT button. I just didn't think to do it at the time. I could take another crack at it one day, but it would be a very low priority.
 
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I do not like LED lights pointed at me. Sometimes I have to cover my rear view mirror. You're aiming them down and thats appreciated. And that applies building and street lights as well
 
Irv said:
Yeah, it's a neutral white LED ribbon wrapped once around the perimeter. I removed the clear diffuser inside as well.

I bought a 25' spool of ribbon for the instrument cluster after the strip Scott H sent me with his gauges wasn't quite bright enough and left behind the notorious dark spot by the trip odometer reset pin. I double-wrapped the new ribbon around the cluster and after seeing those results, I knew the ribbon was going to be the way to go for the SATC as well. A pair of 360° LED bulbs, especially with the quality and brightness of the ones available in the mid-2010s, would have had nothing on this.

In hindsight, I should have scraped the green behind the OT button. I just didn't think to do it at the time. I could take another crack at it one day, but it would be a very low priority.
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Ah ribbon is what I figured, I had zero luck with the miniature LEDs there, they barely even fit and the light was very uneven. The cluster with the stock gauge faces and their printed on diffusers do alright with LED 360 bulbs but not there, I just put the incandescent bulbs back in the climate control. I'll give this a go, also not a high priority but your pics are very inspiring!
 
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Vicinity said:
I do not like LED lights pointed at me. Sometimes I have to cover my rear view mirror. You're aiming them down and thats appreciated. And that applies building and street lights as well
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Those aren't LEDs. That's a proper HID retrofit that was professionally assembled and aligned.

I agree though. I won't ever forget my initial foray into HIDs which was a bulb swap into the stock reflectors. This had to be back around 2010 or so. I was so happy with them until one of the first nights I drove around with them and caused the exact situation you described to the car in front of me at the traffic light. The worst part of it was that the intersection was on a downward slope in our direction. In theory, I was pointing down at an angle below level ground and it still got the guy in front of me. That's how bad the bulb swap was. They were also useless in the rain too, what a surprise. :rolleyes2:

My first-hand experience is why I was so outspoken against drop-in bulbs and even borderline obnoxious about it in the Facebook group along with Josh and Taylor. We were like the Three "Retrofit or GTFO" Amigos. The stock headlights in the '96-97 MN12 suck, but there's only a couple of right ways and numerous wrong ways to improve them that won't inconvenience other drivers.

Anyway, the retrofit was in 2017. It corrected everything that was wrong with the HID bulb swap and I still couldn't be happier with how it turned out.
 
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I was going to say, looks like projectors! My cheap Chinese projectors from 2009 are hanging in there, though something wonky is messing with the hi-beam cutoffs. Another long-list item to address...

I too am a proponent of aligning headlights properly and "don't just add lumens" to stock housings. I think 70% of the crappiness of MN12 headlights is the beam pattern, with the other 30% being the lux of the bulbs.

2009! Wow...

IMG_2454.JPG
 
XR7-4.6 said:
Ah ribbon is what I figured, I had zero luck with the miniature LEDs there, they barely even fit and the light was very uneven. The cluster with the stock gauge faces and their printed on diffusers do alright with LED 360 bulbs but not there, I just put the incandescent bulbs back in the climate control. I'll give this a go, also not a high priority but your pics are very inspiring!
Click to expand...
For a moment, I forgot that those are 74 bulbs that go in the SATC, not 194s. I think that makes a ribbon by far the best option for even lighting. Even the best 74s today probably won't do that well there.

I also soldered in an additional bulb socket routed to the back of the unit between the black dust shroud and the PCB to hold a regular incandescent bulb for maintaining the circuit's resistance. If not for either that or the correct resistor, the SATC LED display's dimming behavior with the running lights will flip.
 
Just playing with junkyard parts. Went back to stock though; it requires a longer bolt, so the whole assembly sticks out too much for my liking.

20230925_154805.jpg

I still think that a 2-door coupé should be equipped with some sort of seat belt guide or mechanism. I know, we have the lower anchor sleeve which makes it easier to grab the belt from the bottom.

I'm talking more esthetically though; functional advantages are more of a bonus. Some may remember that I experimented with a Challenger belt guide:

20220404_141911.jpg

I never really loved that though.

Having nothing is fine, but as long as I can remember, an intricate seat belt design always conveyed luxury to me. As a kid, my best friend's grandfather owned a Mercedes 420 SEC; that was the first car with automatic seat belt presenters. Such decadence.

MB560_KR1_4249.jpg
 
1997ThunderbirdLXV6 said:
Having nothing is fine, but as long as I can remember, an intricate seat belt design always conveyed luxury to me. As a kid, my best friend's grandfather owned a Mercedes 420 SEC; that was the first car with automatic seat belt presenters. Such decadence.

View attachment 709
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This image is breaking my brain. What's happening here and why is it not a photo of a floating seat belt guide?
 
Irv said:
This image is breaking my brain. What's happening here and why is it not a photo of a floating seat belt guide?
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That's an 80s SEC. When you turn on the ignition, with door closed, the arm comes out, you fasten your seat belt, and the arm retracts.

Nowadays, countless coupes and convertibles have such a mechanism.
 
Okay, I zoomed in on the photo and I see what's going on now.

No sane MN12 owner wants automatic seat belt mechanisms if they've experienced a pre-refresh model.
 
I have replaced more BMW E92/E93 seat belt presenters than I can count. They are beyond brittle. If the presenter was allowed to extend fully, it brought the belt right to your shoulder and you didn't have to reach for it. Unfortunately, we as Americans are impatient and tend to reach for the belt while the presenter is still extending.

That almost inevitably ends up with the occupant punching the presenter right in its belt loop and breaking the entire mechanism.

I used to tell my customers to not go reaching for it but instead let it do its job and bring the belt to your hand.
 
Irv said:
Okay, I zoomed in on the photo and I see what's going on now.

No sane MN12 owner wants automatic seat belt mechanisms if they've experienced a pre-refresh model.
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We had a 1989 Maxima with automatic belts. Hard pass. Never again. Even the reliable ones that our Maxima had would drive me insane.

I'm old enough to remember Audi's Procon-ten system. Manual seatbelts and no airbags. It met the passive restraint standards by tying the steering column, shoulder belt pretensioner, and lap belt to cables that looped around the back of the engine. If the engine was pushed towards the firewall in a crash, the cables tensed up to pull the steering wheel into the firewall and snug the occupants into their seats via retracting the seat belt mounts into the body. Really a very ingenious system for the time.


www.carthrottle.com

That Time When Audi Used A Weird Steering Column Instead Of Airbags

Audi is broadly in line with its competitors these days when it comes to safety features, but back in the 1980s it decided airbags weren’t good enough…
www.carthrottle.com www.carthrottle.com
 
1997ThunderbirdLXV6 said:
Just playing with junkyard parts. Went back to stock though; it requires a longer bolt, so the whole assembly sticks out too much for my liking.

I still think that a 2-door coupé should be equipped with some sort of seat belt guide or mechanism. I know, we have the lower anchor sleeve which makes it easier to grab the belt from the bottom.

I'm talking more esthetically though; functional advantages are more of a bonus. Some may remember that I experimented with a Challenger belt guide:

I never really loved that though.

Having nothing is fine, but as long as I can remember, an intricate seat belt design always conveyed luxury to me. As a kid, my best friend's grandfather owned a Mercedes 420 SEC; that was the first car with automatic seat belt presenters. Such decadence.
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Martin, check this thread out: https://www.mustang6g.com/forums/threads/seatbelt-guides.115173/

Also this one: https://www.mustangecoboost.net/thr...have-been-standard-fitment.16973/#post-179501

This looks like it could work wonderfully with LX and maybe even SC seats.
 
1997ThunderbirdLXV6 said:
@Derphound01 , those are Chevy Cobalt units. I haven't tried those.
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GM says they are discontinued and sold out. Fleabay has some knockoffs. Going to order a set and try them.

www.ebay.com

Pair Front Seat Belt Holder Extension Guide For Ford Mustang EcoBoost GT 2015-22 796237720018 | eBay

Find many great new & used options and get the best deals for Pair Front Seat Belt Holder Extension Guide For Ford Mustang EcoBoost GT 2015-22 at the best online prices at eBay! Free shipping for many products!
www.ebay.com
 
IMG_20230926_123022353.jpg
That was my view today at 11500 or so feet. As you can see the trees were sparse and another 30' up there were none. That's as high as I went because I'm scared of heights and the trees gave me some sense of safety. Guess I'd rather have a splinter in my ass than a hole in my head... This was Cheif mountain in the Colorado Rockies

I have dozens of photos from the trip but this was the best.
 
89 TBIRD said:
My '89 has the auto belts (it was well equipped for a base model) and I like them.
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They all did. US required passive restraints back then. Airbags, automatic belts, or the Audi system I posted above all met the standard.

As airbags became more reliable and more advanced in the 1990's, they became the industry standard.
 
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