Last time I had it apart, I gave up and left it apart. I didn’t, however, put that plastic tarp over the air vent and had a couple of days of rain. There were again puddles under the bonnet and that cardboard pulp glove compartment is starting to lose shape. I feel like a bad conservator of this car.
In any case, the cheap black primer I sprayed on those washing machine drain hoses immediately flaked off as soon as the hoses flexed.
I cut a few inches off of the length of each of them last time, but there is still a lot of excess. So I gave them another little snip.
Next up, the fresh air box. The window gasket foam seems to be working nicely in this configuration.
Let’s just snap off that rotten little piece of dried gasket material that’s dangline down.
I ordered a license plate housing gasket to replace the old, dry, cracked, and broken unit. Let’s add that to the “Easy Wins” list.
And then replaced it.
As I was trying to unscrew the nuts from underneath the engine cover, every one of them just unscrewed the stud from the cover itself. Either way, they all came out easily.
I didn’t think the gasket was going to fit. Using a flat blade screw driver helped stretch it around the edges of the license plate light housing. I was then able to tighten everything down.
Next, I carried both halves of the back seat from the basement and reinstalled them.
Kinda…
I have added a lot of additional padding in the seat base. The additional thickness against the bottom edge of the seat back is too much to fit once the seat back is bolted in place. It will take muscle that I don’t have available at the moment.
Let’s move on to the front.
More effort:
– Jam the drill with self-drilling sheet metal screws through the saddle blanket – Through the fiberglass kick panels – Through the actual sheet metal of the car.
Three days later, something inside my wrist-guts still feels out of sorts from the effort.
Anyway, job done.
Aaaaand done.
After the mess with the rear brakes was discovered, I got it all hosed down with brake parts cleaner. Then put it back together and tried adjusting the parking brake cable. Both sides would tighten all the way down without stopping the rear wheels.
Also, this is the first time I’ve had the car started up in around four months. That is by far the longest span it has sat. After four or five tries, she fired right up with no smoke, no warning lights. Ready to go.
She not stop, but will definitely go. I took a few trips back and forth in the driveway. Brakes suck. I’m tired.
Then I loosened the parking brake cables, just to make sure they wouldn’t decide to work at some point when I’m driving and lock up both rear wheels.
Now I move all the way back to the front and begin to reassemble the fresh air box. And packed everything neatly back up under the bonnet.
I’m half convinced that I am missing some parts. The center vent in the dash and the plumbing underneath doesn’t even closely resemble each other. Later, I read an off-topic statement in a post on the samba that said those parts don’t actually mate up.
As it sits right now, there’s no dash pad and no internal vents, so I just reassembled it without the center vent. If anyone has any insight into how this thing goes back together, I would appreciate a comment or a message here. Not that I plan to need the heater any time soon. It was together when I started and I apparently didn’t pay enough attention when disassembling.
Are those hoses that I replaced not actually drain hoses? Are they heater hoses after all? Is it safe to use the washing machine drain hose I purchased to push heat into the cab?
I picked up this washing machine drain hose at Lowes (Lowes link) and it fits perfectly without the need for clamps. I cut both ends off, then cut it in half. It’s an 8 foot hose, which is way more than I will need, so I can cut each side to fit.
Since Dupli-Color engine enamel has been letting me down lately, I just grabbed this can of generic black primer and gave them a few coats.
The rubber gasket around the fresh air intake box is really hard and crusty and it’s always kind of damp under the bonnet, so maybe this foam window seal will work to bridge the gap.
It’s a nice thought, but the adhesive always lets go immediately on those things, so I don’t have very high hopes.
I pulled the speaker out of the dash. I was wrong before, it’s not a Kicker, it’s a Dual.
The overnight rain that was supposed to finish up around 9AM lasted until noon.
Once I was able to get back outside to start piecing together the guts behind the dash pad, the first thing I noticed were these two plastic hoses, all cracked and broken.
They run from the center of the air vent assembly under the bonnet down to a pipe on each side of the car. Being a man of action (seemingly only when that is not what is needed), I went straight to the parts store, hardware store, parts store, hardware store, and hardware store, looking for something suitable to replace them with.
If I knew then what I know now, this afternoon would have been a lot more productive. Once I was in the store and looking at the different varieties of hose by the foot, I was concerned that there may be heat coming in or out through these hoses and didn’t want to risk melting vinyl, or at least heating it up and smelling bad.
So, after a bunch of runaround, I came home empty handed and decided to start googling the part. It turns out, they are just water drain hoses and anything that would fit would work. I found a post on the samba saying that washing machine drain hose worked. Now I have a plan for tomorrow.
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