Four weeks from today till we leave for our mountain vacation, and things are progressing! Here’s what we’ve done so far, starting with the easiest first ….

The service manual talked about a gasket needed for replacing the water pump (more on that later). I made a trip to the dealership to pick one up, and while I was there I was chatting him up about the temp sensor in the rec/drier. It turns out there are two types, one with the sensor on top and one with it on the side. When it's on the top you do not need to drain the
refrigerant, but when it's on the side you do. So it looks like my mechanic and leathermang were both right. :p Ours, unfortunately, is on the side so we would have to drain it. Later, I picked my hubby up from work and was relaying all this information to him, discussing the options etc. He then
dropped me off at Safeway, and as I was walking through the parking lot he nearly ran me over in his enthusiasm to catch up to me and tell me the aux. fan WAS working (he
heard it for the first time when he was walking over to the driver's side). It just started working on it's own and has been working ever since (but is only activated by the AC). I call this method of repair, "Car, heal thyself". :p Unfortunately I have no photos to go with. :p

BTW, I wanted to ask about this suggestion to leave the car idling to save the turbo. Is the car idling, or just the key turned so the aux fan is running? How is idling cooling it off when it tends to get even hotter idling?

Next, I attempted to get the cigarette lighter to work. Not that I plan to take up smoking, but I figured it might be nice to be able to plug the cellphone in and call for help when the transmission gives out half way up a summit. :p The fuse box terminals were looking a little corroded so I cleaned them with sandpaper and also replaced a number of the fuses. What I discovered in doing this was that the pattern of the fuses in no way resembled the
'map' I have for the fuse box. Not sure if it was just a random layout of red white and blue, or if the previous owner was trying to recreate the American flag. Almost nothing was right, but I guess all were bigger than required or they would have been blowing like crazy. So, fixed that all up, but the lighter still didn't work.I dismantled the ashtray and tried cleaning the lighter itself, but still nothing. Then my husband used his voltage meter to check and I guess there is no power leading to the connection in the dash. It's not the fuse though, because the light in the glove box works (and they’re on the same one). So probably a fried wire, right? We may or may not try to resolve this, since the phone probably won’t work in the mountains anyway.

I've only filled up once, but I did wipe the antenna with a bit of left over diesel. It did go down one more notch, but I noticed today it is back to 2 notches sticking up. I may get fed up and go at it with some Varsol or something.:p

I have ordered a new reservoir cap, and a set of new alternator belts (to take along, just in case).

Hubby bled the brakes and the pulling to the right is gone!

Now, on to the more difficult things. Hubby replaced the water pump with the one from the parts car, and so far so good. But, a couple of weird things. There seemed to be no place to attach the gasket that I picked up at the dealer. I HATE having parts left over! But, narry a leak so I guess it's okay. He thinks the gasket is probably for the thermostat or something. Second weird thing is that even though we replaced the green
coolant with MB coolant a month ago or so, the coolant that came out was pretty darn green! The green stuff was heavier though, and the pan it went in to had the spigot on top so it kind of worked like a gravy separator (you guys have all made gravy, right? :p ). I filtered it all through a coffee filter too before putting it back. So, all seems well.. temp usually around 90, occasionally up to 100. But, we didn’t do any ‘burping’ such as described in 123c’s thread. Should we? MORE coolant went in this time than when the coolant was replaced, so I think there must have been an airpocket then.

So, lastly, the accumulators. Oy, oy, oy. As you describe shawnster, not exactly a barrel of laughs. To start with, the parts car is so rusted it is difficult to even find a spot from which it can safely be jacked up. You can forget the holes the jack is supposed to go through, they are dust. So he used a hydralic jack and jack stands. BTW, never leave a car on jack stands on ashphalt in the hot sun for a couple of days… you get a big hole in the ashphault! We found this out when we removed the self levelling strut, so now he puts the jacks on steel plates first. We get a little smarter every day!

Anyway, the other day he gets the car jack up, but it’s still pretty claustrophobic under there. He’s got dirt and rust falling in his eyes (though he’s wearing safety glasses), and he can’t get the smaller bolt loose and he realizes he starting to round the corners so he gives up, frustrated. He comes in, cranky as a bear (he’s also catching a cold) and starts complaining about how he hates fixing cars, when are we going to get a real car, and why don’t we sell Mary and get a minivan. WHAT? Mary? What did she ever do? Since the initial repairs that were done to Mary we havent’ had to do a thing in the way of repairs. I admit Belinda is a bit of a ‘hobby’, but I hope that it wont’ go on like this forever. Does it make any sense to sell a car that isn’t needing any repairs, and replace it with something that most like WILL need repairs, because you're tired of repairs? What we could get for Mary wouldn’t buy us a ‘good’ minivan. I’m chalking it up to irrational male hormones. But, we are open to offers on Mary. She’s a 1973 280 with 115,000 miles. Mechanically very sound, but she’s got some rust. There. I can tell him I advertised. Probably safe to tuck that away in the diesel discussions.:p

Anyway, he did have another go at it a couple of nights later and managed to get them both off (though he had to cut one line). I did read your advice on getting new ones Peter (was also what I figured to do when he was having such a hard time removing them), but by that time the ones from the parts car were off so I thought it best to keep that to myself. Given his mood, the next thing I know the dog will be up for sale. Or me! I do hope they still ‘accumulate’! :p It’s not a car we have driven that much, but the parts car did seem to have a much smoother ride. It’s not the end of the world if they don’t work, since getting them off is the hardest part, but will probably be easy to do the second time around (a week later). He did mention something about it being good practice even if they don’t work (there’s things he would do differently when he removes them from Belinda).

I can only imagine how long our "One year ago today..." list will be by the time it rolls around, when our quarterly report is this long. But, hopefully the rest of the year won't be quite so 'fun filled'.

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Natalie