Stupid van...

[Firefyter-Emt]

I have been putting this off for close to a year.. Why a van that had about 60k on it had a heater core go bad I will never know, But I can not let my wife suffer stinky heat or cold anymore.. I dug into her van tonight, I mean really dug in to it!!  Oh yea, this is on the "going back togather" mode now.. The large black box on the RT was also out of it.. Now to reinstall a mile of heater duct work & the dash.. I have to run out tomorow to buy new dash speakers as you must remove the dash to change them. They are well over due them self.
 

[NightOwl]

WHEEWWW!  Lee, my admiration for you grows by leaps and bounds. Most people faced with what you show in that picture would first have a nervous breakdown and then leave town as fast as they could and leave no  forwarding address.  :yikes:

But Andi will soon have a much-improved van to enjoy and  I hope she is properly appreciative of your efforts in her behalf!  

(I had NO  IDEA their innards loooked like that--how do you even know where to start?)

[Acts 2:38 girl]

I'm glad he's doing it - I'd have no idea even where the bolts are on the dash!  He's a good man:-()

[NightOwl]

MY goodness, I have been looking at the pic again.  He IS a good man, Andi--a very good one, and it's great that you appreciate it!:#

  I couldnt help but think, though, that it is kind of like looking at some of those surgery shows on tv whre they have someone's intestines and internal organs all exposed  and you go "eeeuwww!!"  :yikes: :J

(Now he needs to send us a pic when he has it all back together again and it looks "normal" once more.

[tlhdoc]

Are you sure it wasn't in an accident?  I never saw under the dash of a van before.  There sure is a lot of stuff in there.     I am glad that you are fixing the van for your DW.

[MommaMia]

Oh MAN!!  After the day I had, if I were married to you, you'd be dead meat!

[SkipP]

I can see the traffic stop now.

Officer: Son (or ma'am), do you know how fast you were going?
 
Uh, no officer, you'll have to tell me!

[chasd60]

Lee,
   I changed a heater core in a van just like that last year. There are two methods to changing the heater core in one of those.
   
   The first way is the way you are doing it from the inside by removing the entire dash panel which takes quite some time.
   
 The second way is to remove the 4 screws to the heater core access panel under the hood, that way takes about 30 minutes for the entire job.
   
   Why did you choose to do it the hard way??
   
   
 And to be truthful, I have never changed a heater core in a van like that and I really don't know of how that particular one is done.
   It certainly seems there SHOULD be an easier way though.

[a1coolmom]

I'll have to dig up my pics too. We have a new to us Toyota corolla that we couldn't figure out why it smelled so bad. We pulled out the seats ,removed the carpet,scrubbed the headliners and doors and still smelly. finally hubby gave in and removed the whole dashboard. You could open the trunk and see all the way to the firewall. It ended up being a carcass of a long dead mouse (I think!) in the wiring of the heater core. Not pretty ! We too had to replace lots of stuff,and retro'd the AC while we at it. It smells nice now and everything is clean and shiny. Way more work than I had planned but worth it in the end!

[NightOwl]

The Car Talk guys on PBS sometimes "revisit" the people who call in to see how they are doing with the problems they called in about.  They once had a lady who called in and said her car  AC and  heat/blower system wasn't working right and smelled really funny everytime she turned on the heat or AC;  said it smelled kind of  "cereally"  They gave her a short answer:  "dogfood"  "WHAT?" she said.  Then they asked if the car was parked in a garage and if  they stored dogfood in the garage.  Answer to both questions was "yes"  They told her their guess was that mice had stashed  dog food in the HVAC system of her car  and THAT IT WAS NOT A RARE PROBLEM>

And the follow-up phone call revealed that yes, it was mice and yes, they had been storing dogfood in the car's innards.   :yikes:

Didnt sound  nearly as bad as the dead mouse  in a1coolmom's Corolla    though.

[MommaMia]

The Car Talk guys on PBS sometimes "revisit" the people who call in to see how they are doing with the problems they called in about.  They once had a lady who called in and said her car  AC and  heat/blower system wasn't working right and smelled really funny everytime she turned on the heat or AC;  said it smelled kind of  "cereally"  They gave her a short answer:  "dogfood"  "WHAT?" she said.  Then they asked if the car was parked in a garage and if  they stored dogfood in the garage.  Answer to both questions was "yes"  They told her their guess was that mice had stashed  dog food in the HVAC system of her car  and THAT IT WAS NOT A RARE PROBLEM>

And the follow-up phone call revealed that yes, it was mice and yes, they had been storing dogfood in the car's innards.   :yikes:

Didnt sound  nearly as bad as the dead mouse  in a1coolmom's Corolla    though.

Elisa!!!  This is sooo funny!  

When we were getting ready to move a year ago, I was still in CT packing when DH moved here ahead of us.  It was also my job to get DH's 67 Caddy ready for the auto movers.

The day they were to arrive I went to the garage to warm up the car since it had been about a month since the old girl had been started.

I started it up and let it idle.  After a few minutes I could smell something weird... Burgers!!! Or Chicken on the grill!  UUUGHH!  I figured a mouse was getting fried in the engine and that's what I smelled.  It grossed me out to think cooked mouse smelled like chicken or burgers.  I called step dad down from the house ( inlaw apartment)to come see if he could see where it was coming from.

"Nope... can't see anything"  He said.  I gave it a little pump of gas and PBBBTTTT!!!  I hear this funny sound in the driveway behind me!  Next thing I know, step dad is laughing so hard he can't talk!  He's pointing behind the car.

I get out and look,,,, all over the driveway are little pieces of charred stuff.... DRY DOG FOOD!!!  A mouse had stashed food from mom's dogs dish in the tailpipe... who knows how far up!  When I started the car, the exhaust system started cooking the dog food!  No wonder it smelled like burgers and chicken!  Kibbles and Bits!!  Smelled mighty tasty!

[NightOwl]

Cindy, I thought that song about

 "Kibbles and Bits, Kibbles and Bits,
  I'm gonna get me some Kibbles and Bits"

applied to DOGS, not meeces! :yikes:

[Acts 2:38 girl]

Just when we thought he was done...I think I fried my transmission.  I have been leaking tranny fluid for about a month now, pretty bad.  I was just babying it along, adding more fluid - not romping on it, etc.  Yesterday on the way home from the grocery store I noticed smoke pouring out the back of my van.   This happened once before, but it cleared up pretty quick.  No such luck this time.  So now the transmission is out of the van and DH is picking up a new seal.  Someone also said it could be the transmission pump, which is a "send it out" kind of job.  :mad:   Hopefully it's just the seal - they're cheap!

[Firefyter-Emt]

Not on this one Charlie.. The heater core is mounted and screwed inside that black box there  on the RT. That box is about 3 times larger than the hole in the firewall. The box it in 2 halves with about 12 screws holding it togather. The absolute only way to change the core is to remove that box inside the dash, tahe the box apart, and unbolt the core from inside to box. Would of been nice to do it for the front even if I had to trim or cut something, but 100% impossiable on this van to do it that way..

 
 

Lee,
I changed a heater core in a van just like that last year. There are two methods to changing the heater core in one of those.
 
The first way is the way you are doing it from the inside by removing the entire dash panel which takes quite some time.
 
The second way is to remove the 4 screws to the heater core access panel under the hood, that way takes about 30 minutes for the entire job.
 
Why did you choose to do it the hard way??
 
 
And to be truthful, I have never changed a heater core in a van like that and I really don't know of how that particular one is done.
It certainly seems there SHOULD be an easier way though.

[Firefyter-Emt]

Yep.. Tranny is a pain. Got that back in tonight. I thought it was 100% fixed (heck, wifey don't even know the seal was not the whole problem, she is aslep..) I watched it for about 1/2 an hour and it did not drip so I bolted it all up and cleaned it up good then let it idle for about an hour.. Dang if there was not a 1" oil spot on my shop floor!!! :mad: Oh well, gotta look into the front tranny pump and the cost of replacement on that.. Hopefully it will hold out a while and maybe I will have a company car by then..
 
 
Funny (not so funny) thing happened with the tranny. Not having a tranny jack, or a good enough floor jack I used 2 ratchet straps to lower the tranny. What you have to do is to load up the strap all the way and let it down, stopping before you let out too much, add a second strap, loosen the 1st strap and load it back up and lower it some more.. Well, I had it 1/2 way down and I let out the strap too far on the front strap. Dang!! Tranny slipped down onto my chest and hit me hight in the chin!! Gve me a heck of a bruise on my chin and a nice cut too!! Good thing it only weighs about 200 lbs! (and it only fell about 10-12 inches.
 
Man I hate cars at times!! My wifes van was blocking access to my Jeep's hard top so I left the house topless today (with a jacket) and my 1st stop was about 75 miles away.. Well 40 miles into it is started to rain! No big deal, I will just put on my bikini top... :eyecrazy: Dangit!!! I didn't have the hardware to mount it with.. Luckily it stopped after about an hour and was not heavy...
 
~Sigh~ Sometimes I think I should just buy a new car, But I just can not stand a car payment..