Yellow Headlights

Recently read up a post in Lifehacker, a solution to clean yellow headlights. Their recommendation - denatured alcohol. After a few weeks, I decided to give it a try. The version of the alcohol I found was white spirit. The kind they use for painting. Can be purchased from any hardware shop. Cheap.

Next part is cleaning. This involves A LOT of elbow grease. As usual, test on a small area before working on a large area just in case there are some unwanted reaction.

Make sure you have plenty of rags and rubber gloves (if possible). Why gloves? Cause spirit will drain the moisture and oil from your hands faster than you can clean the headlights. SAFETY FIRST.

When you first apply spirit on the area, rubbing it off will give it a cloudy look after the spirit evaporates. Keep this up with a clean rag repeatedly until there is no more cloudiness. At times this will take a LONG TIME and A LOT of effort. It all depends on how bad those lights are.

Most headlights nowadays are made from polycarbonate. Some might know it by its commercial name Lexan. According to a spec sheet from GE, white spirit and isopropyl alcohol (IPA) are ok to use for cleaning polycarbonate.

I've tried a lot of stuff for yellow lights.... still waiting to see how long will this last until my arm has to go for extra training again.

Also at the same time I'm trying some polishing/rubbing compound to see if i can get better results. Some of you may have read about wet sanding method. I've not tried that yet.

Links and pictures later when I have time.

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Update 12/12/12: The IPA solution works to keep the yellow away about a month. Recently I had my car repainted and they polished and lacquered my headlamps. Slightly better than before. As the car wash applies their cheap wax on the lights when the do the car, that turns yellow quickly.

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Update 3 April 2012: Car already sold but just wanted to comment on headlights, the lacquer that Ah Huat (from the paint shop) applied had been peeling off. So much for its proclaimed high quality lacquer. Proper sanding does keep it sparkly much longer.

Identifying a Head Gasket Failure

Chances that you are here readings this means you need to know more about head gasket failures and it is also likely someone told you your car needs a top overhaul or your head gasket has failed. Before going on further the first thing we need to know what is a head gasket and what does it do.

The definition per Wikipedia is as below.
A head gasket is a gasket that sits between the engine block and cylinder head in an internal combustion engine. Its purpose is to seal the cylinders to ensure maximum compression and avoid leakage of coolant or engine oil into the cylinders; as such, it is the most critical sealing application in any engine, and, as part of the combustion chamber, it shares the same strength requirements as other combustion chamber components

To summarize - head gasket ensure separation of engine oil, coolant and combustion chamber. Also you need to note that  the end product of the combustion chamber are exhaust gases.

With this you should rough have an idea by now, what happens when the head gasket fail. Right, the possibilities of coolant, engine oil and gases mixing. We can come to the following scenario when the head gasket fails.

1. Coolant + Engine Oil
2. Coolant + Combustion Gases
3. Engine Oil + Combustion Gases
4. Coolant + Engine Oil + Combustion Gases

Of the 4 scenario only those with combination of 1 or 2 are detectable in the system with visual inspection. Your friendly neighbourhood mechanic will usually suspect a head gasket failure based on the signs provided by these 2 failures.

1. Bubbles in radiator spare tank
2. Engine oil cap has water vapour
3. Engine oil is discoloured (think: black coffee + evaporated milk)
4. Radiator spare tank water level drops regularly and require top up

Air Cond Service

I finally decided to go get the truck's a/c serviced. It has been smelling 'sweet' for months when I start up the a/c in the morning. Come to think of it, the air conditioning system in the car is the least serviced system in the whole car. Can't really blame everyone considering everyone that you know that has serviced the a/c ends up telling you how expensive it is or how they got ripped off.


Banly Auto was the hangout for today's service. They have been in business since 1980. The place is definitely the cleanest and most organized one I have visited so far. It feels like visiting a 3S center. Total damage today was RM887.50. Breakdown is as below.

The 2 items that surprised me was the condition of the thermal expansion valve and the cooling coil (aka evaporator). The thermal expansion valve had yellow mouldy looking stuff and bolts on them are super rusted. 

The other surprise was the cooling coil. They it was filled with black gunk all over the surface. Unfortunately I forgot to take a photo of it. The one below shows a dirty cooling coil also but its filled with dust. To imagine how bad mine was, just add water and oil to it.

For those that don't know the cooling coil (evaporator) is located in the passenger cabin. Usually its in the area right under the dashboard in the area under the main blowers behind the console. To think I was driving around with all that gunk gives me the shivers. I asked the guys working on my X to see if they seen any signs that the a/c system had been serviced before. I got a big NO. Gosh.. 8 years of mouldy gunk. Yuck !


After what I've seen today, I'll obediently send it for service every year or two. Maybe 18 months. 


Oh yea.. the nice guys at Banly also put in a nice mod by glueing the outside air intake vent with a thin piece of superlon. Even more prevention for outside odour coming in. 

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Head Gasket Failure - Update 4

It is true when they say, if you need something done, get it done yourself. Leaving TCEAS, I suspected my plugs might have been tainted since I ran the car with a failed HGF for weeks. Told the guys to check it and change it if it was bad. I had a hunch and I was right. The picture above tells everything doesn't it ?

Maybe I'm a perfectionist but running around with fouled plugs after your engine gets a new lease of life is like putting dirt on your face right after you cleaned it. As a result, I bought my own plugs and changed it. This is the second time I've changed my own plugs and I'm definitely getting a hang of it.

To everyone out there, check your plugs after you get a head job. =P

Head Gasket Failure - Update 3

Finally my X-trail is out of the shop. Total damage RM2287.80. I was reminded that Service Tax is now 6%. So our dear government took RM41.58 of my money because I had to repair my car. Where is the logic in that? Parts cost is RM1711.50 and total labour cost was RM693.

The final bill of material of repair is as below.

1. Gasket Kit (yes they did skim the head)
2. Magnatec Engine Oil
3. Thermostat (2 pcs)
4. Injector fuel hose (existing hose has harden)
5. Shim sproket (no clue where this is. need to look up the manual)
6. Oil seals for crankshaft
7. Oil filter
8. MAF sensor
9. Water control valve

Head Gasket Failure - Update 2

The truck is still in the TCEAS. Top overhaul to fix the head gasket failure (HGF) has not completed. Zam told me when they disassembled the engine, it was very obvious which cylinder was having issues in the QR20DE. Of the 4 cylinders, cylinder number 2 had a nice thick black soot on the piston head. The rest are nice and clean according to Zam.

The HGF replacement was almost complete on Friday but they could not give me the car as they found that all the mating marks did not match and it was off by 1 degree. Something to ponder upon here is that who screwed up? Did they mess up by accidentally turning the camshaft or the crankshaft after the timing chain was removed or did the previous group of people that performed a top overhaul on the car mess up? Hmm...

See below for a diagram of the timing chain and the location of the mating marks.

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Head Gasket Failure

Wonderful, the latest symptoms point towards a failed head gasket (HGF) in the truck.

Which symptom? The spare tank looks like it is boiling. The fact is that the spare tank is not boiling but its steam/air bubbles escaping from the radiator.

The truck is scheduled for a top overhaul at TCEAS next week. The head gasket replacement or top overhaul as they call it will take around 1 week and around RM2000 to fix this issue.

On top of my head now, it currently seems like there were a few indication that the head gasket failure was in the making many months back. See if you could string up a connection in my repairs. I need a bit more data after they disassemble the engine to confirm.

The truck is celebrating Chinese New Year celebration even before I do. Now I need to go resolve my transportation woes for next week.

Tesla Model S Vehicle Engineering

Tesla's Vice President of Vehicle Engineering, Peter Rawlinson, gives us a tour of the Model S electric sedan. Malaysia has not even reach maturity for hybrids yet. Full electrics will probably take another 10 to 20 years? Sigh...



Tesla Vehicle Engineering - Part 1 from Tesla Motors on Vimeo.



Tesla Vehicle Engineering - Part 2 from Tesla Motors on Vimeo.



Tesla Vehicle Engineering - Part 3 from Tesla Motors on Vimeo.