1. It Ain't Easy Bein' Green 2. Hot Wheels 3. Details, Details 4. Sound Blaster 5. Road Test 7. 2010 Snowball Rally 8. Engine Woe/Getting Even Chapter 7, 2010 Snowball Rally, continued
April 2010Preparation
To get it ready for high altitude (going over the Sierras) where there would be snow and low temperatures (well, snow anyway), I removed the non-functioning Auto Temp II unit, which is a defective design and dead on all of my Fuselage cars, and replaced it with a manual heater valve and controls.
Originally, the plan was to replace the controls on the dash with a unit from a 1972 NYer, and I got the parts, but that proved impractical. I got the idea from Kerry Pinkerton some years ago, and he carried it off successfully, but he's smarter than I am, and it is so temperate here that the heat from the transmission hump is pretty much all that one needs most of the year. I don't go out and hop into a cold car at 5am, so I bypassed everything.
The vacuum pots seemed to be in different order, and I couldn't figure out how to get the heater valve control cable connected to the slider lever without pretty much reinventing things, so I skipped that, but not before pulling out the original controls, so I put the manual controls in, disconnected as a snub to the failed ATCII unit.
The new valve went in without complaint, and I used a choke cable and hid it under the dash. I can't get to it while secured in the 4-point belts, which I also added before the event, but heat just isn't that important, and I figure I can pull over if I need to adjust temperature.
With the help of Ken Lang, the fan rear blower switch -- rendered useless by the removal of the rear defroster blower in favor of a subwoofer, was rigged to control the fan. Here again I took Kerry's advice and sourced a squirrel-cage fan blade out of a late 1970's Chevrolet truck. The stock unit is designed to be Imperial and quiet, and I really want air to move through the car more than anything, so I grafted the larger bladed fan onto the car's blower motor and reinstalled it up in the wheel arch when I replaced the failed power antenna.
The AC is presently not charged or sorted pending me being happy with the engine, but the air volume increased significantly, and I plan to run a wire from the AC compressor back to the dash to turn the AC on so that I can take the car out to the Nevada desert for some fun on Highway 50 (seen that on Google Earth yet? Check that road out!)
