Just Do It

12/9/2025

Hi folks! It’s been a while. Almost a month since the last post. It’s been quite cold here –

You know… for the PNW.

We’re less inclined to work on Emma when it’s cold outside.

I stumbled across a woman on Tiktok recently. I think she might have been recently laid off from her corporate job or something. Mid-20s, first-time mom of a toddler.

The entire crux of her Tiktok channel is “We bought this great house, and it needs things done to it. I have put off X task for Y days/weeks/months/years because it sucks. I have now made a list of things and I’m going to force myself to do them while you watch.”

It’s good TV, friend. She’s very kind and humble. Her channel really espouses a mantra of mine – one that I’m actually not great at personifying:

Just do it.

That thing? That really complex, difficult thing you’ve been putting off? It’s actually WAY easier than you think it is. The 90 days you’ve spent dreading it? You could allay that in 90 minutes with a quick YouTube video.

That brings me to this…

That there is Emma’s heater control panel. And it’s **disgusting**.

Sixty years of gunk, dirt, rust, rat shit, whatever. Add in some mid-60s silicon grease which crusted into silicon sludge, and the whole thing was due for a makeover.

At first, I intended to pull the thing out, spray some DeOxit into the electronic component to hopefully free it up some and fix that issue we have with it not ever turning off – that still remains to be seen.

The elecronic component

Once we got it out of the car, my wife immediately grabbed it from me and went to town with some 99% isoprophol alcohol, some Q-Tips, and a toothbrush.

Disassembly

In truth, and assuming it works, this ended up being one of the easiest modifications/maintenance tasks we’ve done for Emma since we got her.

I also had to shave down some screw holes with a file, as someone, at some point tried to squeeze too-big screws through them, and the slag from it bit me.