November 26, 2010 - You'd think I had plans to spend more time driving this thing.
In order to keep Janel happy, the car needs a heater. So I found the wiring for the heater fan switch (someone had helpfully placed a label on it that said "HEATER FAN"), plugged it in and...nothing.
Nuts.
So I stuck the switch in the bead blaster just to make sure there were no corrosion problems. Checked the power at the fan and it was getting juice and a good ground. Just for fun, I grabbed the fan out of the parts car and plugged it in.
Success.
The car had a bad heater fan. Luckily, it's possible to remove the fan without affecting anything else and there's just enough room, so I swapped them out. There was a fair bit of noise going on though. I decided I needed to move the fan outwards very slightly and give it some noise isolation, so I made a gasket out of cork. Mission accomplished, the car now blows air through the heater into the interior. I also taped up the cold air inlets that are not currently attached to anything to minimize the amount of cold air intrusion into the cab.
Speaking of gaskets, I slipped a thick composite gasket between the passenger side header and the head. That will hopefully cut down some of the noise from an exhaust leak - although I also realized that there's still a significant hole in the passenger's footwell that's used for the wiring. I have a grommet to go there but I'm still working on the wiring, so it'll stay open for now.
Just because this wasn't enough, I raised the ride height a bit to get closer to my target height. The fender cutouts make it look a bit odd but that's a temporary thing. This may improve the ride and handling as well, although the visible different camber on each front wheel will probably have some effect.
The car should be ready for more driving tomorrow. This is going to be fun.
tags: exhaust, suspension, HVAC |
THE DIARY