Saturday, November 28, 2009

A Hot Detour

So, after reinstalling the carpet, it was time to get back to the original source of trouble - the heater core assembly.

You may recall that I removed the heater core because it was leaking coolant fluid into the pedal area. This is bad - it can lead to my feet getting scalded, but worse, the pedals would get wet and slippery. Not something you want while pressing the brakes to stop and avoid hitting the guy in front...

To repair the leak, I removed the complete heater assembly, and tore it apart. The heater core itself is a small radiator-like heat exchanger, which heats up air with engine coolant. It looked in good shape, but I had it rebuilt and serviced, just in case. I also removed and replaced the valve that controls flow of coolant to the heater core, which is another potential source of leaks.

From Q's House of Speed


As for the rest of the assembly, it is mostly built of plastic, with a pair of metal doors that open and close in order to guide hot air through the heater core, and out to either the car floor (heater mode) or to the front windshield (defrost mode.) A pair of levers control these flaps. Both flaps were rusty, so I cleaned them up and derusted them using Evapo-Rust rust remover. I then applied some primer and a couple of coats of black Rust Oleum spray paint. This should help keep any new rust from developing.

From Q's House of Speed


The top of the box has a rubber gasket that seals and isolates the whole unit. In my case, there was no gasket, so I had to make one of closed-sell foam rubber material. Simple enough.

So, after all this prep work, the box was reassembled, and made ready for installation. The only problem was this: reinstalling the box requires access to bolts that are impossible to reach once the box is in place - unless you remove the dashboard. I also think that, with all the new insulation in place, the carpet is a bit raised, and does not provide enough room for the box to be installed into place - unless you remove the dashboard.

Sigh....

You know where this is going, right?

Carpet and Insulation

So, with the third brake light installed, I was ready for installing the carpet.

Recall that I removed the carpet in order to replace the interior insulation, which was very grungy and smelly. After installing all of the new insulation, it was time to replace the carpet.

From Q's House of Speed



This is pretty straightforward - just spread the carpet inside the car again. The tricky part is getting the side door sills to install correctly. To do this, one needs to reinstall the rubber trim around the doors. For some reason, the rubber trim seems to have shrunk a bit, and it would not fit all around the door sill. Further, it seems to be too thick, and it is very hard to slip into the groove onto which it fits. After a bit of struggle, I was able to get it close, but it still gets in the way of closing the door.

Sigh...

The door sill themselves were easy to install, though.

The carpet does not smell bad anymore. Which is a good thing. Next up - reinstall the heater box, seats, belts, and the car would be ready to go. Little did I know...

A Light Detour - Part 3

So I mentioned earlier that I was thinking of installing a third brake light on the car. The idea is to make it more obvious to other drivers when I am braking. I figured a third light would make things a bit safer for me. This is not necessarilly for the purists, since third brake lights probably had not been invented by 1974, and if they were, well, no one used them.

From Q's House of Speed


I ordered an LED third brake light from Daniel Stern Lighting. Mr. Stern seems to be fairly knowledgeable about car lighting, Plus, he stocks LED-based tail lights, which seem to work well on other cars I see on the road. There are various kits, depending on how steeply angled the car's rear window is. I picked kit XXXX, which seemed to match well with the Alfa's rear window.


The kit itself includes the third brake light, and some accessories to tap into the car's existing brake light wiring. It also comes with some fairly simple instructions. I tapped into the brake light wiring from the wire harness inside the car - the wiring to the stop lights run under the carpet, on the drivers side of the car. Since I had most of the carpetting and interior out of the car, this was simple. I then routed the wire through the trunk, and up to the light itself.

The light itself is taped to the rear window with an included adhesive decal, which you paste into the window, then paste the light assembly onto it. It is very simple stuff. The only thing about the decal is its ugly "Hella" logo. A nicer, flat black, unlogoed decal would have been nicer, but I figured it won't matter so much anyways.

Pressing the brake pedal now produces the typical three-light signal we are all used to by now. It looks bright enough, too, so I am hoping my chances of being rear-ended while driving the Alfa have been decreased a bit.