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I really needed one more week to work on the OG before I left for Zcon. Just one more week would have made the whole drive so much less stressful. I would have known that I had a radiator problem and I would have mitigated it before I left. But I lost that week waiting for struts because Amazon screwed up. So here's where I am today. I took the leaky radiator I got at the show to a local radiator shop. They sealed up the leaks and pressure tested it. I swapped it into the car, and.... Driving around with no thermostat, it wouldn't even reach proper temperature!! Way better than what was in there! So just to see where the gauge would land, I put a 160 degree thermostat and went for a drive. It stabilized about here: So next chance I get, I will swap out the 160 for a 180 thermostat and check again to see where the gauge lands. But the bottom line is I'm a whole lot better off than I was with the previous radiator! I blame Amazon. And photobucket.

I replaced a headliner in a Toyota a few years ago and passed on the Weldwood Contact Adhesive because of the price and quantity. I used 3M Headliner and Fabric Adhesive. It comes in a spray can and was easier (more forgiving) to use than contact adhesive. The 3M has held up well, and I'd definitely use it again.

Adhesive type matters. I have found contact adhesive available at local stores isn't good enough for high heat (automotive) applications. With interior temperatures going well north of 100 degrees repeatedly, it let's go. This stuff does not. It is only available by the gallon, and has a relatively short shelf life (a year or so), but I find it to be amazing, and crucial for any adhesive application in our cars.

Thanks for your reply, inline6. Here is that portion of your build thread. Excellent pix. Very helpful. I'll check out Grainger, McMaster-Carr and others for thin neoprene foam. As and aside, I tried searching just the "S30 Interior" portion of the forums for this specific topic before posting this new thread, but "vent" returns over 500 hits and I didn't want to spend the time investigating each one's summary to see if it was germane. I know, I'm just plain lazy. But I remember spending countless hours in the departmental library "stacks" tracking down references in Chemical Abstracts back in the pre-computer days. Probably added 6 months to my graduate degree program doing that. March 19, 2024 Author comment_663237 This past weekend, I rebuilt the side vents - the ones that are opened/closed via the knob underneath either side of the dashboard. The rubber parts that seal around the edges of the disc that moves to close/open were dry rotted, but intact. I thought about installing them as they were, but when I poked at the rubber, it crumbled easily. These vent mechanisms are actually pretty difficult to remove/install, so I decided to rebuild them. I have some thin rubber sheet I got from McMaster-Carr some time ago. It comes in handy for making gaskets, and applications like these. For each vent, I had to first remove all the old rubber material. Then, I cut two semi-circular pieces a little over size so that the edge would fold over seal against the ID of the housing. I then used the contact adhesive I have been using to glue them into place, one on one side, and one on the other. To finish up, I cut some 1/8" this open cell foam which seals the vent housing to the car body.

Your saying $12k for a new driveway with those measurements? Not digging up the old asphalt and hauling it off? Thank you Charles, I've just guessed at the price of concrete. One of my neighbors with a smaller drive paid $15k for concrete but that included breaking up and hauling off the old concrete. I'm just going to wait on my Powerball winnings. For the time being it's gonna be patched and possibly sealed. If I do a good job the next owner's will buy the concrete.😁

So I'm home. The bottom line is that the car fared better than I did. Remember in the beginning, I was worried about two things... My radiator and my back? Well the radiator didn't get any worse, but my back did. By halfway through the day at the people's choice show, I was hurting. I'll survive, but it's unpleasant. The radiator... I had talked to a couple people about the troubles I was having and they put it out on the Z network that I was looking for a radiator to get me home. Well as a result of that networking, there was a guy coming to the people's choice show that was going to bring me a radiator. We found eachother at the show, and I snagged a rad. He wasn't sure of the condition, but was optimistic about it. Said it looked good, and as far as he knew, it was in good shape. That night, @madkaw and I swapped radiators after the banquet. Out in the parking lot, draining the fluid, pulling mine out and tossing in the replacement. Now remember that my back is pretty much shot at this point, so when I say "we changed the radiator", I really mean "he changed the radiator". So when he wasn't looking, I snapped a pic of madkaw working on my car: Bottom line? We had to do the job twice, cause the replacement rad I got from the guy at the show leaked horribly and wouldn't hold coolant. Sigh. So, we drained again and put my original back in. It holds coolant fine, but has a couple clogged tubes. I'll just have to watch the temps on the way home and adjust my speeds and load accordingly. My original radiator works fine until I'm going up a long hill on the interstate at 70 on a hot day. Thankfully as I drove north, the ambient temps dropped some and I was much better off. By the time I got to Maryland, the temps had dropped enough that I was able to maintain 70-75 on the interstates without worry. Thanks to everyone along the way that helped with the trip and glad for the chance to meet some of the forum guys!! @madkaw @Ninjaneer11 @zed2 @Parman @inline6