The next thing that I decided to work on is getting the heat back online on the Monte Carlo. I had removed the old heater valve on the hose going to the heater core in the past and replaced it with a regular ball valve thinking this is what's necessary to get hot antifreeze moving through the heater core to deliver heat as hoped for. This was also due to the fact that I wasn't getting vacuum to the line that normally feeds the heater valve. Still I wasn't getting any heat when the temps really dropped. Something had to be done about this.
I ended up getting a replacement heater valve from auto zone, which turned out to be really cheap, I had to ask myself why I didn't just get this shit sooner. The first thing I checked out was how this thing operated. I found that in the standby mode with no vacuum on it the heater valve is open. This pretty much means that when the heater is turned on, vacuum is applied to the valve and it probably closes, not all the way, but enough to restrict the flow of antifreeze so the heater core can release more heat into the car. I installed the new heater valve and then moved on to the vacuum manifold behind the HVAC control panel since there was no vacuum going to the heater control valve. After some close inspection I found that the linkage between the lever and the little vacuum control valve wasn't moving the way it was supposed to and opening the thing to let vacuum pull to the heater control valve. After finally disassembling and reassembling things right so the valve will open and pull vacuum, I put everything back together and had vacuum pulling when the lever was moved over to the heat side. Heat appeared to be flowing from the vents but I really couldn't tell if it was going to be a significant amount of heat since the temps were pretty high for the winter. I'll have to wait until the temps drop enough to where I would legitimately need heat. Now if the heat still doesn't flow the next thing I will be doing is checking out the thermostat on the engine since it might be stuck open and not letting the engine heat up to operating temperature. When its pretty cool out the engine temp doesn't even get above 130 on the gauge. The next thing that I did was get the Grand Prix body loaded up on the trailer and strapped down for its final ride to the junk yard. After getting the Scion off the trailer the past weekend I had attached the trailer to the F250 and staged the whole rig next to the driveway. My plan was to use the S10 to pull the car out from its parking spot into the main driveway then pull around the back and pull the car up past the trailer. Next I'd stage the ramps and give the car a push and roll downhill and turn the car at the last minute and hit the ramps and hopefully go up on the ramps. Since the Grand Prix was angled away down the driveway I had to pull the car out and away from the truck and trailer. Since the brakes were no longer functioning I had to put an old tire in front of the car's tire to stop it as I kept slowly pulling it into the driveway. After getting it staged straight in the driveway I was able to drive the S10 around facing up the driveway so I can chain up to the rear of the car and drag it up the driveway. After carefully moving up the driveway, having to stop to correct the steering angle so the car continued to stay straight on the driveway I then got the ramps ready. I put a milk crate in the car to sit on and had the ole lady give me a slight push since the driveway is already on a grade and I started rolling. I quickly turned the car at the last minute and got lined up with the ramps and went up enough to get the front wheels onto the trailer. I ended up hitting the parking brake to stop the car so it wouldn't roll back off the trailer. The next thing I did was move the S10 down next to the F250 and attach the chain to the front of the Grand Prix at an angle. The idea was to pull the car the rest of the way onto the trailer with the S10 so I don't have to winch the car the rest of the way manually. With the ole lady working the S10 and me in the Grand Prix on the parking brake we commenced with the operation. At first the S10 started spinning its tires some but finally got enough grip to finally get the GP rolling the rest of the way onto the trailer. The parking brake did its job of stopping the car once I was all the way on the trailer. With the body finally on the trailer I secured it with the two ratchet straps I have with the trailer. The car's now ready to go to its final resting place.
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