fiat spider

Tonight, I spent the night pulling out the old heater valve for replacement. After I got into it, I discovered a stuck heater control. So, looking into that I removed the heater box. And decided for good measure, to remove the heater core and examine/flush it out. And I got a little suprize. In addition to a lot of green coolant that I managed to collect in a tin can, I got a huge pile of leaves, twigs, bugs and trash. Probably about 3 inches of it. Glad I cleaned that sucker. Guess there is no filter between the outside vents and the heater. Maybe I should put one on there. Even a screen seems like a good idea after all the junk I pulled out.

Man, getting that heater valve out was a chore. Tiny space for the wrench and I had to work sideways and upside down to get under there. Plus coolant leaking out with every turn. Yeesh. Glad that's not something that goes bad often. Or at least I hope.

The pic in the top right is the 'short tube' and the 'long tube', revealed for the first time here, exclusively! ;) A half hour of polish made the tubes look great, as you can see before and after in the pics. Probably not worth it, but kind of fun when I didn't have anything else to do. Tomorrow I'll attempt to put it all back together, or at least what I can without all the right gaskets.

I also discovered something else. I ordered 2 'long heater hoses' from IAP. They're about a 2 feet long with an "S" curve in the end. I have no idea where these should go. Mine only requires the 2 shorter hoses. And these don't even fit. I'm kind of bummed at IAP for selling them to me. But I should have known exactly what to order in the first place. Dangit.