Heater core R&R?

A

aroot1

SCCoA Member
Well, ran my '90 XR7 auto up to bout 60mph from a dead stop after waiting for someone to make a left thru oncoming traffic. Shifted 2nd hard at near 5K, showed 12-13 on boost gage, then let out of it. Immediately started smelling hot coolant :( Had to stop at a RR crossing couple miles later, so I popped the hood, looked everything over quick, no bubbles in over flow tank, no milkshake in oil, no wetness under hood, no steam/smoke from exhaust. By the time I got to work pass side carpet was wet, and coolant dripping from heat ducting. So, I popped a heater core, HOPING that it was NOT from lifting a head and pressurizing the cooling system, but head gaskets r now on my immediate suspect list:rolleyes:

Anyway, are there any tricks, tips, or known pitfalls to watch out for when changing the heater core out there in SC land? I have the factory manual, but it always amazes me the accumulated knowledge that comes from the group here :D

Thanks for any tips or help

Adam
 
KMT,
Thanks that is a great thread. I have never had any luck with the search function on this site. I searched several times and never found that

Adam
 
I cheated - I had that comment in my notes...mainly to reformat it for better readability :)
 
By notes, do you mean like bookmarked or archived on your personal page somehow? I poked around a little and could not find an area to do that, but man that would be great to be able to do on the site! I've found a lot of stuff that I'd love to be able to refer to later! If you can please post up how/where to do it,

Thanks!

Adam
 
All on my computer (shared to the cloud). Sometimes the note might just be a url. For articles like that one, however, I remembered I had it locally (where it is sometimes easier to search ) - once I found it, I pulled out a short search string, then used it w/search here & linked it so I don't clutter the forums with duplicates.

Typically, I'll start by copying something interesting that may relate to an ongoing or future project off the 'net , into a draft email. When I have time, I'll go thru those and move the ones I want to keep by placing them into documents where I can edit, consolidate and formalize for long term reference. Those are linked to the cloud so I can access on my iPhone & iPad. It's common for those documents to contain photos/videos, but the bulk of those types of resources are kept in photo albums (so many there I have to remember to tag them so I can find them faster later), which are also shared to multiple devices. For parts tracking, I have a handful of databases that also include photos, videos and voice memos. Everything goes to a dedicated backup system that runs once an hour.

Searching here takes practice, I think. I like the old version better, but I'm getting used to the new tools ok, i guess.

Just my opinion, while having the ability to warehouse notes here seems like a good idea, the powers to be may have to pay for such storage/bandwidth, so cost may be the driver in that case.
 
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aroot1 said:
Anyway, are there any tricks, tips, or known pitfalls to watch out for when changing the heater core out there in SC land? I have the factory manual, but it always amazes me the accumulated knowledge that comes from the group here :D

Thanks for any tips or help

Adam
Click to expand...

Make sure the replacement has tubes that will physically fit through the opening in the firewall. I replaced mine when the dash was out the first time and had to tweak it a little....didn't like doing that with the wimpy heater core welds though. :rolleyes: Check the evaporator too. Clean out any junk that found it's way from the cowl. There's a few. :)

Taking the dash out sucks the first time!!!!
 
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