Those were my first two tasks and they were brutal. Half the fun...?

I would start by doing a search on this forum: autoheat. There are a number of excellent threads that will tell you more than you ever want to know. There are more than a few members that have back dated their systems so they work more like a good ole VW. If you remove all the electronic gobbledygook, the system is just like a 60s VW. I muddled through and was able to get my autoheat to work, but had to source some used components to get there. It's a labor of love in the search for 80's vintage automatic heating.