Fahrenheit 451

Or in my case, heater control panel repair and maintenance. I was driving home about a week or so ago and wanted some heat in the cab. Admittedly, it was about 75 degrees outside already, but I had been working in an airconditioned building and I like it HOT Grabbed the slide handle to turn up the heat setting, started setting it nicely up into the red, but it was binding some, pushed a little harder and POP! Something in the assembly broke apart. Great. No sauna on the drive home.
I put it into mental inventory of stuff to do/fix, right after fix the lawnmower and bale the lawn. Funny how much more the grass grows when it knows the lawnmower is dead.
The part arrived so I fixed the mower and got my yard looking very much less Little House on the Prairie-ish. While I was in repair mode, I pulled the lower part of the dash on the 4Runner and the heater control panel enough to see what was going on.
The slide appeared to have broken off at the pivot point. What had happened was the pivot point for the coolant shut off valve in the engine compartment had gotten bound up from corrosion and lack of use. Yup, I'm something of a freak. I also like it cold in the winter and often don't use the heater much then. Go figure
After messing with the lever for a bit, I decided that fixing the lever at the control panel would be pointless if the valve assembly was still jammed up. I got some lubricating oil and put it on the plate with the pivot and rivet and let it sit for a bit. While I was at it, I put some oil on the shaft that goes into the coolant shut off valve as well as the wire in the cable that hooks the lever in the control panel to the pivot mechanism in the engine compartment. After a bit, I worked the assembly manually from the engine compartment until it all moved freely. While more shaft and cable was exposed I added more oil to them. Luckily, it all started working quite smoothly leaving only repairing the control panel lever.
With visions of hunting through junkyards and online posts of Toys being parted out, I did my Cirque de Soleil impression inside the truck to see what could be done to fix the control panel. More luck here. The lever is held in place by a pin that also holds the duct selection lever and runs through the panel itself. The pin is a simple white plastic unit with barbs at the end. It is held in place by a small white rectangular clip that pinballs around inside the dash when some bozo tries the, "if'n it don't work, push harder" method of heater repair. In my case, the retaining clip wound up sitting on the passenger floor mat in a "I bet stupid over there never notices me sitting here" kind of way. When I finally gave up and was having visions of bailing wire farmering through my head as a way to get it working temporarily, the clip caught my eye. It takes a bit of practice to hold it all together with one hand while putting the clip on the pin with the other, but it is doable.
Now, I actually have a heater again. I can't wait for a good hot day to use it
Pointlessly long story made short, a quick bit of maintenance under the hood will save you a bunch of hassle under the dash.

p.s. It's the maintenance that is quick, not the story

leebee

nice work! i like your writing style, self depreciating in an ironic way. nice to see someone who can write about their mistakes, make fun of themselves at the same time so the rest of us can laugh and think 'man, im not the only one who does those kind of things!' not that we would admit on a public forum anyway! glad it all worked out for you. if you like the cold, you could move up to ontario. gets pretty cold around here in the winter, you wont need the heater in the summer, the humidity can make a sauna feel comfortable some days.

lee

Dr. Zhivago

Great Story! I read it aloud to my GF and she thought it was great, too.

Nice job.
G

CAM 1

Nice work.

Craig.