Tuesday, November 28, 2006

House heater, how seasonal ;-)

Just decided to add one more heating zone to a 3 level(basement, 1st-floor, 2nd-floor) 2-zone (one zone is for 1stand 2nd floor) house.

Why bother?… well:
- more comfortable,
- easy to add,
- projecting 300-400$ in savings for a heating season…

so what I did:
- turn the water off
- drop the water from heater system
- cut, and unsolder Y-join and old-unused piping.
- construct a new feed thru motorized-zoning valve (the box with wires)
- solder all together
- make all electrical connections
- bleed air out of the system


it was a two tries in project, old 270 degree coupler has hair thin crack, and I thought it's a unsolder, so I solder it back, but got the water leaking again... remove it, bought new one, solder it on place, this time it worked without the problem.

I guess the tricky part was to bleed the air out of the system, spend 2 hours to get it right.

Saturday, November 25, 2006

Changing heater core on accord 99

Here I share my exp. for changing heater core on Honda Accord 99 v6... (well my English is creepy... but the experience is useful )

Since my trusted '99 Honda accord v6 130k

So, heater-core starts to spill ethylene glycol (the kicker in a coolant fluid) into a cabin... It's a time to change heater core. While price at a Honda dealership for this swap runs at $1500, where is also unclear wait time and 2 days of work, so I decided to change it myself. Meanwhile as a temp remedy; I have created a bypass to avoid “healthy” action of ethylene glycol. I have sweat U-shaped bypass using half-inch copper pipe and install it in engine compartment on the hoses, which use to connect to heater core. It gave me very cool, but vapor free ride. Anyway... heater core... bought one(used on ebay for $62 with postage).


start the distraction...
It goes in following order climate control, radio, glove box, cover for shifter, under arm box... (2-3 hours)

… eventually all connectors are disconnected, and all screws are unscrewed and panel is gone from car. (2 hrs)



now there is a safety bar, 4 main bolts on a left side, 2 main on a right... and more connectors to disconnect... 30mins

ah... additional 4 bolts or so to drop steering wheel, to make a space for safety bar to be shifted. (1 hr)


now safety bar is shifted and old heater core has place to be removed...
repair manual suggests that AC condenser has to be disconnected and removed... do not bother, just loose all nuts on it and on a blower, rock it and shift-pool it into a cabin... you would be able to get heater core out... 2 hrs


now car is heater core "free".



Installation of Heater-Core and back assembly was brisk and all together took about 3 hrs.

After all wires are reconnected, and double checked, (do not forget there is a SRS which could be deployed if something is wrong with connection or installation!)
First click of the key - all is fine...
second click - all controls are alive and normal...
turn for the starter - nothing happened, just #7 fuse on a passenger side blown...

Now tell me?! what did I do wrong?