Week from hell.................

[strat1960s]

I certainly hope none of you have a week like mine.
Monday: went to have subframe connectors welded on.
Took 6 hours for welder to get all the tools together and weld
them in.

Tuesday: Found broken bolt in water pump.
Had to pull water pump to fish broken bolt out
Found stripped bolt in water pump
Had to goto 3 different parts stores to find one. I still had to
take a bolt from the junk drawer and cut down to size.

Friday: Blew fuse for interior lights
Drove to work at 0530 in the dark.
Noticed windows kept fogging up
Found leaky heater core.

Saturday: Bought replacement heater core.
Replacement heater core is leaky too.
Exchanged 2nd leaky heater core for good one.
So far no leaks

Sunday: Washed car and cleaned out the insides
Discovered interior courtesy lights no longer work.
I'll save that repair for next weekend.

With weeks like that, wheeeww, I think I'll stay in bed for another hour or two.

Ted

 

[Titleist16]

I usually feel like that almost every week! But at least I'm having fun and learning some stuff while I'm at it.

 

[xctasy]

It's okay. It's worse with the later Falcons. You have to take the whole dash out to do the heater core!

How many times I've had the water pump bolt go. Most often its just the split washer snapping, then its the bolt, then its a full dill out job. ( the left most of the four bolts when looking from the front of the hood). Fords bolt quality in Aussie cars was bad, and its a common issue wit the American 200's too from what I've heard.

At least the early 200's don't have a full gammit of viscous fans, a/c, power steering, air pump and all the thermatic fittings and pipes to remove first.

Cest la vie!

 

[66Sprint6]

My heater core is leakin BAD, where did you get your replacement, how much and how hard was it to replace. My car is just sittin so I figure I can get that fixed while Im waiting. Thanks!
Matt

 

[Anonymous]

Ted,

I feel your pain...

Had a bad week in January....

Went like this...

Contract Bronchitis (never had it before)
Cough up yellow and green oysters for 2.5 weeks
Fall in snow on granite steps...badly bruise hip...
Cough some more, so badly it hurts
Feel pain when coughing in lower abdomen...
Realize you have coughed youself into a hernia when you go to medical
Schedule surgery for yourself....

Just shoot the old mule now....before it gets worse...

Work on my mustang...didn't happen...

Cheers,
Steve-O(cough, hack...)

 

[strat1960s]

Matt,

I got my heater core(s) from checkers. It came out to something like $38.00.
That was the easy part.

The hard part was getting the leaky one(s) out. If your in no hurry, to replace the heater core, either plug the ports or get a brass fitting and hose clamp the two hoses together, bypassing the heater entirely.
Other wise here goes.
You're going to have to pull the defroster plenum, glove box door and the cardboard thingy they called a glove box. Once all of that is out of the way, the heater box comes in two halves, held together by metal springy clips. You may need a long thin screw driver to pop them off. Once you have all the clips off, you need to carefully pull the two halves apart. I say carefully because there is a foam/rubber gasket that seals between the heater-air-intake and the cowl. If you break it, your done for. once you get the front half of the heater box off, you can disconnect your heater hoses from the back of the box and the heater core should come out pretty easily. Put it back together in reverse order.
After taking a practice run at it, the second time only took about an hour. I tore up the cardboard glove box so I didn't have to put it back in.

Ted

PS. the interior courtesy lights problem turned out to be a loose fuse socket. I poked it a couple of times with my test light and the lights came righ on. I really need to get one of those painless wiring harnesses.
Does anyone know if they come with new plugs or do I need to save my existing plugs and solder them in place?

 

[strat1960s]

Steve,

You gotta take care of yourself. I used to get bronchitus (sp) several times a year. I know about hurting yourself from coughing too hard.
Take care and hope you're feeling better real soon.

Ted

 

[Asa]

i used to love weeks like that, not cause of everything breaking, but because i knew that once everything was fixed at the end of the week, nothing else would break for quite a while