Solvent quill, controlled foam dissolver.

Note: this post has been written over several days, so contradictory temporal references and information/statements that were already covered in prior posts will be even more common than usual.

I found my cats.

I don't know how the hell I didn't find them the last 5 times I looked in the place where they were, but at this point I'm not putting much thought into that.  You'll probably also notice some u bends in the picture as well, along with the fact that none of it is welded together yet.  I'm sure it won't take a lot of thinking to figure out what's been going on with the exhaust.  Still don't want to talk about it beyond that, though.

The heater core box is as done as things have been getting lately.  It took a little more time than I'd have liked on account of needing to track down what parts it should and shouldn't have, but I got all that ironed out.  It's now fixed in place (I wouldn't say installed, because I have a suspicion that it'll be coming back out at least once).

I had to cut some foam gaskets for it, due to not having a couple that were needed (probably lost over the last couple years).  It was pretty straightforward, except there was a small hole needed in a place where a neat cut would've been beyond my abilities.  After thinking about it for a few minutes, I decided to see if I could etch it out with a solvent.  Results weren't too bad; certainly better than if I had used a blade.

To do this, I snipped off a couple inches of spare brake line with my side cutters.  This gave me a sharp edge and collapsed the tube walls, which was almost perfect.  I used a pair of pliers to squeeze the end open just a hair, and the result was something kinda like a quill pen.  I dipped the tube in some acetone and capped the open end with my thumb, using the interior of the tube as a reservoir.

I drew the circle on the foam using the acetone as "ink", and confirmed that the foam started to slowly dissolve.  From there, I just refilled the tube with acetone periodically and gently rubbed away the foam with the sharp end.  I thought it was a neat trick, even if the results aren't laser sharp.

Here's a shot of the bay the end of the (yester)day:

Left a little length in the hoses until everything's nice and in place.

In other news, the A/C evap isn't going to work. More on that in a future update.  Maybe.  You can read about my crazy-ass attempts to investigate it here:

http://theamcforum.com/forum/topic95637_post843546.html#843546