10/25/2025
So many things have happened in the since the last post!
We moved the other car out of the garage, and parked Emma diagonally. She’s easier to work on that way.
My wonderful wife decided she was going to make some changes. The first of which was installing our new heater box, heater core, and heater blower motor.
All of these were sitting on the side of the garage waiting for us to install them, and I think she got tired of looking at them.
I should note that, like all Emma changes, this was 10x more complicated than it originally appeared.
The first step to replacing a heater, believe it or not, is to drain the radiator. In doing so we, discovered quite a bit of rust.
We’re gonna pretend we didn’t see that and move on.
After draining the radiator, we started the removal of the heater box/heater core from the firewall of the car. This ended up being more complex than anticipated because either:
- The previous owner used RTV (essentially glue) to keep the hoses attached to the heater core, or
- The hoses have been on the heater core for so long that they baked on
It could also be a mixture of both.
In any case, we replaced the braided metal hoses with brand new high-quailty hoses.
Believe it or not, we nailed this on the first try. So far no leaks at all. We even ran the car for 20ish minutes. No leaks. Yet.
We also:
- Mounted the gauges (finally)
- Removed the passenger seat (to facilitate work on the heater box)
- Vacuumed the car (first time)
Now, there is one issue – the heater blower motor (which I almost never use) seems to run when the key is turned on, regardless of whether it’s turned on at the switch or not. This is clearly a matter of where I have the motor wired. I’ll work on that later. It shouldn’t be too hard to work out. Like I said, I almost never use the heater anyway (trust me, the engine produces enough heat which ends up in the passenger compartment).
There’s also one more accomplishment – for about 18 months I’ve been sitting on a new passenger door panel, which my wife very expertly installed. I can’t do it. They piss me off too much. She has way more patience.
Next up!
- Glove box refab! Parts ordered!
- Engine bay hood bumpers
- Eventually – new carpet. It’s waiting in a box in the garage!
I want to ensure that nothing leaks (heater core, oil gauge) inside the engine compartment before I put in my new light brown carpet, kwim?
Stay tuned!
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