The price of a good mechanic
Well I got the Ghia back from the shop this morning. It was a simple fix. For some reason when they replaced the gas tank, carberator, fuel pump, fuel filter, etc. they didn't also replace the rubber hose that connects the line from the gas tank to the engine. The mechanic put a new hose on, adjusted the brakes and charged me $0. Mainly because he missed the heater problems in the inspection.
I asked about difficulties in replacing the heater cables. Shouldn't be a problem. Pull the old ones out and shove in the new. The cables are fairly stiff wires so they should shove through the housing tube easily. The main problem is that there is a low spot in the tube where water can accumulate and therefore rust. Sometimes it can be a problem to get the wire through because it has a larger metal tip for connecting to the heat box lever. He said in this case they would take an old clutch cable, flatten the end, and attach it to an electric drill. The flattened end would work as a drill bit and ream out the channel. Alternatively you can cut off the larger end of the new cable and once it is through the channel bend it into an s shape to attach it to the heater box lever. The other issue is that one of the cables is longer than the other. Their are two tubes, one on top of the other, and the longer cable goes in the bottom tube (he thinks). Anyway if it is wrong just pull it out and put it in the other one. Or instead of using heater cables some people would just permanently wire the levers in the open position: year round heat! Might be a bit hot in the summer though.
In any event I'll have to place another parts order.
I asked about difficulties in replacing the heater cables. Shouldn't be a problem. Pull the old ones out and shove in the new. The cables are fairly stiff wires so they should shove through the housing tube easily. The main problem is that there is a low spot in the tube where water can accumulate and therefore rust. Sometimes it can be a problem to get the wire through because it has a larger metal tip for connecting to the heat box lever. He said in this case they would take an old clutch cable, flatten the end, and attach it to an electric drill. The flattened end would work as a drill bit and ream out the channel. Alternatively you can cut off the larger end of the new cable and once it is through the channel bend it into an s shape to attach it to the heater box lever. The other issue is that one of the cables is longer than the other. Their are two tubes, one on top of the other, and the longer cable goes in the bottom tube (he thinks). Anyway if it is wrong just pull it out and put it in the other one. Or instead of using heater cables some people would just permanently wire the levers in the open position: year round heat! Might be a bit hot in the summer though.
In any event I'll have to place another parts order.
posted by Doug Druckenmiller at 8:28 AM
1 Comments:
Yeah, as I said in my previous comment to your last post, from what I can tell replacing cables *should* be pretty easy. I would certainly think they're easy enough that it's pretty pointless to just leave them disconnected and keep the heat on year-round. I wonder why not jack the car up twice a year in the back and open or close the valve depending on which season you're going in to? =)
Mine is permanently closed, so I'd like to fix it to get some warmth now that the weather's turning colder.
Come to think of it, why would someone default the heating system to "always on" when you ideally shouldn't drive these cars in winter with salt-covered roads? Hmm!
On a related note, I was reading that it can actually be rather easy to make the front end draft-free. If the rubber seals around the trunk are good and there are no leaks there all you have to do is make sure the dual horn boot is attached and sealed and the boots around the front bumper brackets are sealing. Or, seal those spots up with weatherstripping for a temporary solution until you get replacement parts.
I don't know if you remember how much time I spent sealing up the front of my Beetle. I put weatherstripping all around the lining in the trunk until I had to jump up and slam the trunk down hard to get it to latch. But, I neglected to seal up the ring where the fan box connected to the vent in the front. Until I sealed that no ammount of weatherstripping around the trunk would stop that very *strong* draft! :)
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