Well, as I don’t have to point out, it’s been a while. This time it’s actually legitimate however, as I really haven’t had a chance to do anything with the project at all since my last post.

Since then however, there have been issues with the intended design of the heater core, and I’ve been advised that my approach would not be effective — that in fact, it possibly would not work at all.

So, I’ve had to seriously rethink everything, and I’ve been worried that not only would I have to change my control plan for the heater, but that I wouldn’t end up getting the level of control I’d wanted. Instead of smooth electronic control like a light dimmer, I’d instead have to deal with using relays to selectively switch elements on and off to select from a discrete set of output values.

(Read on …)

I’ll be really happy when I get done with this heater, so I can put the dash back together and get on with the rest of the project. The phrase “dollar waiting on a dime” comes to mind. I did make some progress this weekend, and concluded most of the “fiddly” part of the process. The rest of the mounting procedure should be relatively straightforward from here.

(Read on …)

Sometimes you have those days when it takes you forever to accomplish something so uninteresting that you have a hard time explaining where all the time went. Yesterday would be one of those days. Though I always end up getting less done than I plan for, yesterday was actually a really productive day. It’s just that the result isn’t much to write about.

But, you know, read on anyway. (Updated, 01/17)

(Read on …)

Another productive Saturday afternoon. We managed to get the heater core out, as shown in the Disassembly gallery starting on page 4. Unfortunately, as it turned out there was indeed a leak in the core as I’d suspected when running the heater. The reddish GM Dexcool had congealed into a nasty syrupy glop in the bottom of the vent unit, which I’ll have to clean. Fortunately it looks like the heat/vent module disassembles further, so with some luck I can get it all out.

(Read on …)