A Leslie Wong Blog

When I built my Roar of the Pelican, a Maglight 2D flashlight modified to be really bright, I used two cheap 3AA to 1D adapters. I needed 6 AA NiMH batteries to make 7.2 V to power the bi-pin incandescent bulb.

I’d read warnings about some cheap battery adapters not being able to handle the high current, so I bought the beautifully engineered Fivemega 6AA to 2D adapter.

The negative end of the adapter fits inside the spring in the Maglite tail cap. The adapter also has a charging jack that takes a 5 mm coaxial DC power plug, so the pack doesn’t have to be disassembled to charge the batteries. Besides 6AA to 2D adapter, Fivemega makes a 9AA to 3D adapter and 3AA to 1D adapter, among other flashaholic things.

New Bike Ribbon Professional tape on the bars makes my 25-year-old De Rosa seem a little newer; plus, it gives me a clean place to put my hands.

This is what I’d call a complete road test.

This week is the big car week on the Monterey Peninsula. The weekend before the Rolex Monterey Historic Automobile Races at Mazda Raceway Laguna Seca, they have the “Pre-Historics.” A lot of racers are already setup in the paddock and anyone can go in and look around if you pay the $6 parking fee, which is about my speed.

We saw some of the practice for Group 7A, 1964-1971 FIA Mfg. Championship Cars: there were two 1969 Porsche 917Ks, a 1970 Ferrari 512S, 1969 Ford GT-40, a 1968 Alfa Romeo T33/2 and various Porsche 908s.

In Group 7B, 1973-1980 IMSA GT, GTX, AAGT Cars, there was Henry Schmitt’s (whose father started German Motors in San Francisco in the 60’s) 1974 BMW 3.5 CSL. I saw it in the paddock with hood off and took a piture of the engine. There were also a bunch of Porsche 935s, a bunch of 1977 Dekon Monzas and various Porsche 911 RSRs.

There were three Bonhams cars that are going to auction next Friday: a 1975 BMW 3.0 CSL in Taiga, the metallic green that looked ugly to me; a 1929 Bentley 4½-Liter (the Mrs. said, “This must have been where they came up with the term wind screen”) and a 1939 Auto Union 3-liter V12 Grand Prix Racing Single-Seater. When we went back to the parking lot (we drove the Bavaria), there was an E9 parked behind us. As we were leaving, we saw the Auto Union broken down on the track while doing a demo lap – they were attaching a tow rope the a fire truck.

I’ve wanted to repair my Macintrash using this method many times, but I would not have started with the claw. I would also be more emphatic.

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One night, while driving through the grove of Eucalyptus trees on US 101 near San Juan Bautista, California, I realized that the sealed beam headlamps on my Alfetta were inadequate. This is the same road that Scottie Ferguson and Madeleine Elster (Jimmy Stewart and Kim Novak) took to Mission San Juan Bautista in the film Vertigo.

A modern car had pulled up next to me in the other lane and I suddenly saw the road ahead. That’s when I realized that I had to improve the lighting on the Alfa Romeo.

Research turned up 5.75 inch (146 mm) Cibie H4 (low beam) and H1 (high beam) headlamps for the quad setup I needed. For the H1 headlamp, I used Osram Silverstar bulbs (NOT Sylvania Silverstar) and for the H4, I used Narva Rangepower High Output Plus 30 bulbs.

This setup is more economical than the Cibie Complex Surface Reflector (CSR) headlamps and I’m only replacing the right side headlamps in my crashed into Alfetta. Osram Sylvania produces a Xenarc HID conversion kit I’ve seen for US$ 588.

I’ve read that installing relays was a good idea for the Alfa, since the factory setup has all the headlight current going through the switch on the steering column. Daniel Stern has covered this and other lighting topics so thoroughly that I didn’t have to look anywhere else.

Comparing the Cibie headlamps to sealed beams is literally like day and night.

A little over two months ago, an incompetent driver slammed into my parked Alfa Romeo. The Alfetta was in the body shop for 46 days while I argued with State Farm over the value of the car and searched for replacement parts.

I was lucky to find some Euro-bumpers on AlfaBB.com. Larry Jr., at Alfa Parts Exchange was more than helpful in getting me grills and headlight buckets. I was up in Berkeley, so I made a personal appearance at Alfa Parts and bought a reproduction turn signal lens, complete with white gasket. Skip, at J & J Autobody in Monterey, did very nice sheet metal work.

Daniel Stern only had a 5.75 inch Cibie H4 headlamp. I had great difficulty finding a 5.75 inch, flat face, Cibie H1 headlamp. A deep Google search for Cibie “flat face” led me to Joe English, owner of Group2 Motorsports for the H1 headlamp. The last thing I’m waiting for are some Osram SilverStar H1 bulbs I bought on eBay.

In the end, it’s an experience I prefer not to have gone through.