suprjohn

I post photos from photobucket with good success. Sorry; can't help with your technical issue. John

Looks nice! I've gotten all my repair parts from rock auto. http://www.rockauto.com/index.php John

Thanks! Better wait and see if I get it all back together successfully! John

Thanks Man! It's actually more of a French blue, but it does look gray in the pics. The dash was fairly faded, so that might have lightened it some. Definitely good enough for a daily driver. John

BUMP decided to paste pics direct so they would be more accessible. john

If the links are too cumbersome, let me know and I'll insert them differently. John

Hey All, Made the next assault on the mouse fortress. Tore into the dash and found more mice nests and pooh. I washed everything down with TSP substitute, replaced the weather stripping in between the various components and painted the dash with Duplicolor Vinyl paint. It came out lighter than I thought, but all in all, looks pretty good. Next, I start putting it all back together. Wish me luck! John

Sorry, it's been a while since I removed it, so I'm a little short on specifics. It seems to me that between the wiring and the squirrel cage, it just seemed easier to take the whole housing out. I'm glad I did, because each section I removed, revealed more mouse nests and excrement. Even after I got the dash out, when I broke it down, there were mice nests inside the ducting contained in the dash itself. Taking the dash apart also allowed me tho replace deteriorating weather stripping between the components. The heater core was also picked with mouse nests. I painted my dash with Duplicolor Vinyl paint today, and I have tho say I think I'd came out very nice. Not a 100 point con cours restoration quality, but certainly good enough for a daily driver. I replaced my fan motor as well, even though the old one was still spinning, just because this cat has 258K miles on it, and the fan was covered in oil like it had thrown it's lube. If I can be off more help let me know. John

In my opinion, anti freeze is important in summer too. It raises the boiling point of the coolant, and I believe gives corrosion protection as well. I run a fifty/fifty mix year round. John

Do they give a visual indication of being blown? John

Don't know if it's like my '89 DL wagon, but I ended up removing the whole blower housing. It looked like it should just unclip, but just couldn't figure out how it should come out. Here's why I removed it:

Rust repair panel? Rocker panel? John

I am in the middle of cleaning out/repairing the HVAC stack in my '89 DL wagon. I had a mouse infestation (car sat in a tree row for about ten years) sho I had to go clear in to get all their nests out. I tested the little vacuum controllers by putting vacuum to, chewing their operation and seeing if they would hold vacuum. They seem tho work so I'm goin to run them. I couldn't source new ones anywhere, so maybe they're pretty durable. Not sure how to test the electro/vacuum dash control. At least it's relatively easy to get out once I repair the rest of the system. I'm suspecting that will be hard to come by as well. Another member here, suggested I check the plastic vacuum line that is on the upper part of the fire wall in the engine compartment and runs from the drivers side to the passengers side. I did find an abrasion to the line there. Can't tell if it's an actual hole, but it is a good spot to suspect. While I had the HVAC stack out, I replaced the foam on the air control doors. I suspect this foam insulates the doors for noise control, as well as assuring discreet airflow. Wow I kind of hijacked this thread! lol Long story short, as Smashed Glass stated, a vacuum leak is a very likely culprit. As far as I can see about the only other things I could see would be a bad vacuum control motor (course I'm not sure if your HVAC system is the same as mine), or the electro/vacuum dash switch. Good luck! John

I bought a JVC Bluetooth receiver of eBay for about $80 that I'm going to try. Next will be to try to find some nice speakers that will fit without too much trouble. John

Take a look at tireack.com. That's where I got my 13's for a good price. Course I guess if you need them by Sunday, that might not work so good... John

I bought stock size 13's from Tire rack.com. They were about half the price of anywhere else I looked. General Arctic Ultima x or something like that. Directional, lots of sipes and voids. Took very little weight to balance. Made in Germany. Join

Sorry to temporarily hijack this thread, but would my '89 DL SPFI 5 spd wagon have this aforementioned light on the ECM? Could be useful! John

Could this be axle splines going bad or CV joints going bad? John

Wonder if that was set up to hunt some sort of nocturnal animal... John

Those are the hoses I used to flush my system this fall. I used the backflush kit from Peak at Advance. Wish I'd thought of the reversing house trick. I think most of my heater problem is still mouse related. John

I got one that was listed for my '89 DL, SPFI from rock auto for $20 just because there weren't many left and I saw how much other pumps were going for. The one on mine still seems tho work fine, but I wanted one for just in case... John

i am in the middle of this right now on my '89 DL wagon. i had to remove the dash to remove a bunch of mouse habitat, and while i'm at it, i'm going to replace the hoses and inspect the heater core. i got replacement hoses from rock auto for a good price.weathers been too bad to work on it, plus i have a torn rotator cuff. john

i got a tail light for my '89 DL wagon off ebay for $50 (with shipping). seems about the going rate on ebay at least. john

if it's got fuel and spark, the only thing left is compression. i'm betting the valves are a little tight, not sealing, and therefore no compression. john

if you're single, i like the two doors cool factor. if you're married with kids, the four door is the way to go. lol john