Heater Core Replacement

  • Sponsors (?)


You'd think they could've designed it to be on the other side of the firewall somehow.

Ah well. Anyways, yes you'll have to remove the dashboard, although not completely. Gotta disconnect where the heater lines plug on to the heater core first.. then you basically remove the seats (mostly for more working room,) remove the center console, drop the steering column, disco. whatever wiring harnesses are between the firewall and dash, remove the bolts holding the dash to the firewall, pull the entire dash forward, prop it up on something.. crawl up under there somehow and remove the bolts holding the blower assembly to the firewall, remove that, remove the door, remove heater core..
 
I've done this on a '90. Not fun. Took the whole dash out. But it is doable without taking it out, though it seems like you still have to remove the same amount of screws...
 
Yes this is a major major pain but has to be done. Don't pay someone $500 to do this. I just finished mine today. Its really about a 5-6 hour job when you consider all the crap that has to be removed. The ac lines going through the firewall require a $10 tool at Autozone to get apart, thats what held me up the longest because I didn't know about it. For some reason my Air Bag light is on and the whole system is acting up now and it won't stop beeping on me. Weird. Apparently the Air BAg system is not linked to the OBD2 cpu ( I was told ) so I can't reset it the conventional way...good luck. Its not too hard, just tediuos as helll.
 
Someone has to have fixed this issue. How does the dealership fix this when they do it?>?? I was told that the (blue) module is ruined for some reason because I pulled out the two connectors that went into it. Sounds like BS to me but who knows. There has to be a way. I reconnected what I thought were all of the connectors. There was one connector behind the dash that I could not find the mate to, but Im 99.99% sure it is not an airbag. The way it was positioned it couldn't have been . I guess it would help to know how many there are. I know there is one under the cosole, and the 2 into the module, but other than that I don't know how many or where. Would be a good place to start. Even then though, if you ruin them by unplugging them, well thats ignorant, or smart depending on whether you are a dealer or consumer...