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?