Let there be heat!

So I finally triumphed over the heater today.  My new parts were waiting for me when I arrived after dinner.  I immediately got to soldering.  You can see the new transformer installed on the lefthand side of the circuitboard in the lower compartment, as well as the replacement relay installed on the circuit board in the top compartment. 

After kicking the furnace a few times for good luck, I started it up.  The pilot came on immediately, and the furnace came to life shortly thereafter.  The fan even kicked in after a nervous warm-up period.

I carefully began putting things back together, checking each step of the way that the furnace was still cooperating. Sure enough, the furnace is doing its thing as we speak. I probably won't trust it when I'm not home until I've had an opportunity to watch over it, but right now my thawing toes are a testament to the furnace working its magic.

UPDATE: A few hours later, the furnace quit again.  I opened it up and resumed poking around.  This time, I was careful to only leave the furnace on for a few seconds at a time to avoid burning out any components.  Eventually I discovered that if I disconnect the igniter, the troubling clicking sounds go away.  I removed the igniter, and lo and behold, I noticed that the insulation on one of the wires had worn through - the wire was shorting out with the case of the furnace!  A bit of electric tape (see photo) made short work of the problem, and we're back up and running again.  This short could have been what was burning out other components in the furnace.

The sad irony of the situation is that I'll lose my furnace again sometime next week.  More details on that in an upcoming post.