November 7th, 2001 - Handles, Seats, And Thermostats
Seeing as how my car was now running, let's see what we can do to improve on the running conditions. First off, that broken door handle.
I hate this. No one ever fixes this. Must be hard right? Let's see what the body manual says.
Those three bulleted points are it? Sadly they are. Well let's go. First off remove the five bolts around the window frame.
You can now slide the piece of metal out and slide the window frame out the bottom near the window regulator (takes some doing but can be done).
Now remove the two bolts on the handle.
All said and done. Pull handle (and I do mean pull) to get it out. Slide the new one in.
God Bless America it doesn't fit and isn't the right one. Time to get out the Ames catalog and order the real handle.
To work off that frustration, bolt in some interior.
There. I accomplished something so I don't feel like I wasted my time. Let's change the thermostat and radiator hose!
As evidenced below, the old system needed replacing.
First we need to remove the hose (after draining the radiator of course).
Not looking pretty...
Spilling gunk all over yourself, you remove the hose. This hose can be thrown away as you bought another (didn't you? Shame, run to AutoZone and make haste while the rest of the class has to wait on YOU).
Now we remove the water inlet from the block.
Since I didn't buy another one of these, I cleaned this one out. Rather nasty I might add.
There! It's as clean as... hmm... well... as it's going to get I guess.
Check out that thermostat.
Nice huh? Throw this away. The new one is much nicer and isn't rusted shut.
Since we have all this lovely sludge in the system, let's flush is.
Water in the two funnels is caught down in the pan at the bottom. Two pans are a must.
Keep dumping water down in the system until the water comes out nice and clear. For the record this took about 35 minutes using 25 full Sonic Route 44 cups full of hot water.
Clean the inlet housing out.
Nicer. Now put the thermostat back in, the gasket over it, and the housing back on.
There. All better. Now we put the hose back on and fill up the cooling system.
Fire up the car and make sure you have no more leaks. Leaks are bad. Leaks are what caused me to need to replace all this.
Last updated November 11th, 2001 at 2:40PM