Possumblog

Paradise by the Dashboard Light

WARNING: Graphic Volvo Content! Do not read extended entry if you are likely to be offended by such content!

Finally, finally, finally!

Did one more read-through of my instruction sheet that I wish to thank Dave Shannon for providing, got my tools, and set to work.

One thing I want to say for sure--although Reba thinks it's weird for me to take pictures of what I'm doing, it turned out to be a lifesaver. So always have a digital camera handy, and take pictures as you go along.

I won't go into all the details here--that Dave guy's site pretty well covers it all. Except for the part about just exactly how hard it is to get the fool thing out of the car. Obviously, it was constructed without the steering wheel in place, and to try to maneuver the thing out with the tiller in the way creates many problems. But not insurmountable. And unlike some things, this would not have been any easier with two people. Basically, it's just not meant to be done. As if that could stop me.

Anyway, I did get it all torn up and after I got down to the guts inside the dash, I tried to figure out what went wrong with my defroster. It puts out about as much warm breath as a corpse. Before I tore into everything, I figured out I wasn't getting any vacuum to the damper controls--I could push the buttons all I wanted to and nothing different would happen.

SO, I played with the vacuum servos for a bit and could tell they had enough seal to work--one would move when I squished the other. Hmm. I wonder if there's a vacuum line loose outside in the engine?

Popped the hood, and started looking for rubber lines coming out of the dashboard. Found a couple of electrical connectors that I have no clue what they do, and then finally, the open end of an old greasy rubber tube with tape on the end. BINGO! I pulled it up from behind the cylinder head and traced it back around to the firewall. Well, that's where it goes TO, I wonder where it hooks into the engine?!

I looked around the intake manifold, and right there in plain view, a nice little copper elbow, begging for a rubber tube to violate. I cut the brittle end of the rubber tube off, stretched it as far as I could and pulled a bit out of the firewall, snugged it onto the the elbow, cranked up the car, and HOORAY! The little vacuum servos went back and forth just like they should, delivering air to the defroster ducts, and the floor vents, and a blast of air out the center when called upon! Yippee! (Yes, I was happy to figure that out.) Shut it off and heard the satisfying ::sighhhhh:: of the vacuum reservoir leaking down. Apparently, I've been driving around without any sort of damper control since I bought it, being that this is the first time I've heard that whoosh when I shut down. Very nice. Sometime after I got things back together, I decided I would get some more tubing to make the engine line a bit longer--it was stretched further than it should, and it needs to have some slack for when the engine rocks back and forth.

OF COURSE, after my successful tracking down of this item, this morning I just found out that the guy whose website has the dashboard replacement ALSO has a tip on fixing the vacuum line. Almost the same thing as what I did. I sure wish I had read that beforehand.

Anywho, while the dash was out, I looked at everything and marvelled at the junk crammed in there, and watched the very entertaining windshield wiper arms and cables and pulleys operate. OH, and I had to work on my odometer, too!

See, it kinda makes a bit of a herky-jerky motion as the numbers on the trip odometer go around, and as you recall, I replaced the tiny white gear inside the guts of the thing when I first started driving the car. Well, I thought that it was possible I had put the tiny gear in upside down on its tiny little spindle, and maybe it was causing things to drag. So, I took the instrument panel inside, pulled the speedometer head, opened up the odometer motor, looked at the gear, and satisfied myself that I had indeed put it in the right way. I buttoned everything back up and went back to work.

It was about lunchtime, but I couldn't eat, because I was running out of time, and I wanted to get the new dash in before we had to leave. And added to this was the fact that while she was at TJ Maxx, Reba had gotten a bottle of some sort of Moroccan marinade that had pomegranate juice in it, along with vinegar. LOTS of vinegar. The whole kitchen smelled horrible--she was cooking some steak strips for the kids to have some fajitas, and the overpowering vinegar smell was more than I could take.

FRESH AIR!

Now then, getting the new dash into place.

As hard as the old dash was to get in, the replacement was even harder to get in.

I didn't care too much if I broke something on the old one, but the new one I had to be extra super special careful. Which was impossible. After much grunting and pushing and pulling and aligning pegs with holes and shoving and grabbing, I finally had it more or less in position. Started screwing in the many screws, found that I had one of the light switches caught between the framework and the dash. Undo, move, rescrew. Then, the cable.

Great huge thing running under the ignition switch. Little did I remember that the cable had originally run OUTSIDE the dash, and I was doing ALL I COULD to ram it back up under the pad. No luck, obviously. GRR! What was I doing wrong!?

"Terry, it's..."

"I KNOW, I KNOW, I'M COMING!"

It had gotten to be 4:00, and Reba had come out--fully dressed and ready to go--to remind me. We were supposed to leave at 4:00. And I was still covered in sweat and smears of sticky soundproofing mastic. And my dashboard was still not in right. And I had to get a shower and put on nice clothes, because I thought it was a nice clothes event.

I locked up my stuff and took off upstairs, rather in a put-out mood, I must say.

Showered, washed my hair, shaved, brushed my teeth, deodorized, put on my shirt, pants, socks, shoes, belt, tie, loaded my pockets, grabbed my suit coat--4:15. Quite possible the fasted pit stop I've ever accomplished.

All because Reba's mom wanted to leave at 4:00 so we could get there and find a parking place. Reba called to let them know we were just now leaving. They weren't ready to go.

::sigh::

We went on toward their house--they were going to follow us down, and Reba's dad had told her they'd wait for us at the turnaround at the entrance to the neighborhood. Got to the light, turned, and there they go. Turning out of the subdivision. So much for waiting at the turnaround.

The drive down was very relaxing, which must explain why it was so hard to stay awake. Must have been the soothing rain and the hypnotic windshield wipers.

BUT, we did get to Tuscaloosa!

Next: Where's Moody Music Building?

Posted by Terry Oglesby at November 7, 2005 12:02 PM