Coffee 3-12-11

Smitty, I think you & I would get along just right....here's a pic of the steering bearing repair I did on the backhoe....I had a bunch of slop to take up so Popsicle sticks & epoxy glue hold the bearings in. That was 6 years ago & it's still working!

I lost the heat this week in my '97 Ford Van. After reading a bunch on the internet & doing a little diagnosing, it seems an internal flapper door has broken. You can not buy the ninety nine cent door, you must buy the $275 entire heater core assembly as it's been redesigned because the flapper door breaks! The flat rate book shows 8 hours to R&R the core. Well, I did the repair in under two hours. I did not remove the core, but I was only 5 minutes away. I drilled a couple small holes, added a nylon twine and a cleat. Now..need heat? Pull the string & cleat it off. Don't want heat? Let the string loose. It bugs me a bit that the dealer is willing to charge 7 or 8 hours when it only takes a couple. Grrrrrr

Freddy, beings we're a bit uppity here on the hill ,I took a remnent of a manuel choke cable & did the same repair in my plow truck-& loke your set up, she just keeps working --funny how brilliant minds travel the same roads

A country boy can survive!!!!

I lost a pen down the AC vent on my company car last summer. It was fine until I needed the defrosters this winter. The pen was jammed in the mode door enclosure. Well, I removed the center dash trim and the radio...the heat/AC enclosure could not be taken apart without first removing the entire dash, plus there's a crash bar right in the way. See photos for the pen removal. I don't stick pens in the dash vents anymore.

Also meant to say,,, A coal burning boy can survive!!

Freddy,

Nice repair job on the heater.

I do A/C and heater repairs on cars since it cost me so damn much for the A/C equipment to just replace condensors normally damaged in crashes. Anywho several years ago I had an elderly couple show up with a Ford Country Squire wagon with problems with the air blend door. It would not move to change between A/C or heat. End result was the vacuum actuator was bad and replacement would have big bucks for them. The solution......unplug the actuator for summer use. The default position was controlled by a spring to keep it open.

So each spring they would stop by and I would unplug the actuator allowing full A/C operation. In the fall they would return and I would plug it back in thereby closing off the A/C core. I could access the plug by long needle nose pliers through the glove box.

I could tell the seasons by their arrival. And I never charged them for the conversion. It was just nice to see them every year.

Rick

Wow, am I late for coffee! Just got home after a 3-day trip to North Carolina. We walked thru many houses, trying to find "The right one". Found a couple good ones, found alot of nasty ones. Gotta scope out the neighborhoods & schools too.
Ok, got my coffee and megamil tickets, now I just need a donut.

Hey Freddy! I've done the "String-Heat" thing on my 1997 exproer back in 2001! Works great!