Heater Core

[Dan P.]

How in the hell do you get to it?

I walked out to my car today after work and saw a puddle under my car, I was like please don’t be from my car. MY luck it was, there was coolant on the K member. I popped the hood to find that there was coolant coming from where the AC drip is in the fire wall. After talking to a few people I determined that it was the heater core and it needed to be replaced. I have been in the garage for about an hour or so taking apart the center consol. I was wondering if you guys have any tips on how the hell to get to it. If you do it would be greatly appreciated.

Dan

 

[SVOconvLX85]

The dash has to come out if it has A/C. In the meantime, disconnect the heater core and connect the two hoses together that go to the heater core. If you really don't need heat, that will be just fine, but if you need the heater, replace the heater core.

 

[kiddiccarus]

1. You are screwed
2. 10 hours of work
3. remember this is a 35 dollar part
4. the shop wants around 700 to do it.
5. Like SVOconvLx85 said all the dash has to come out of it. Do this change in the fall not now it is just tooo hot right now take a breezy fall day to do it you will be much happier and the beer will stay cooler too.

 

[Brantley]

Since I talked to you earlier this afternoon, I thought of one more thing.. Go to an auto parts store and rent a coolant system pressure tester. That'll make it a lot easier to positively locate the leak.

In my IE Favorites, I found 2 websites that might be helpful to you:
http://www.mustangmonthly.com/howto/5652/
http://pw1.netcom.com/~skent/mustang/1990/heater_core/hcore.html

(I am on a dialup connection, so I did not verify that the website are still there.. hopefully they are!)

Good luck.

 

[bhuff30]

It might take 10hrs if you take your time, and it is your first time, but I have done it comfortably in 5 hrs, and it was only my 3rd time on a fox.

 

[Dan P.]

Thanks for all the help you guys. By the way it was $ 20.20 Man I wish I had another car to drive, this is going to take much longer than I thought

 

[kiddiccarus]

I hope that it wasnt 3 times in the same car man. Bhuff the will be his first time and I usually assume that it will be anyones first time when they ask how to do it. I hope it dont take him that long but it can as you probabally know from experience. I am going to do mine soon I have been waiting for a cooler day to begin though.

 

[itsgreat2bme]

I had to replace my heater core, I never noticed it was leaking since my sense of smell sucks, and I was wondering why I got headaches when it was cold outside. Luckily my boyfriend (at the time) was a mechanic and told me what was going on once we rode in my car.

I helped him take apart the dash and console, but had to go to University right after that, but it didn't take him more than 5 hours with a little help from me If you can get someone to help, then all the better, and if not, well then good luck

 

[Dan P.]

Where do I go from here? I wanted full access

 

[89lx2.3]

you gotta unbolt the whole box and take it out. then undo the screws on the top of the box and take off the cover. pull out the old core, drop in the new core and put everything back together.

I recently did all this when adding a/c to my 89 coupe. I would guess that over the course of the project it only took me about 3 hours to pull apart, add ac components and switch core, put it back together, and get it working properly.

What I found is that if you just unbolt the dash assembly and tug it off the mounts then from the pass side pull as far as it will go without breaking something that you can get the box outta there without completely removing the dash. This seemed much much faster and easier than when i pulled one from an 86 TC and took the dash out completely.

good luck!