Heater core help

[Jaguar5822]

Hey guys, I think my heater core definitley took a sh!t, coolant leaking in where the passenger puts their feet, and smoke if I turn on the blower at all. Wanted to ask if someone knows how to do this, if you can post here instructions or if you can email them to me. Any help would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks
James

[need4speed]

Buy the new heater core. gmpartsdirect.com will save you a lot of money if you can leave your car parked for a couple days or can remove the heater core hoses and connect them together somehow. What I did was use an old hose that connects water hookups for a washing machine, and bought some cheap garden hose repair connections and voila!

To get the heater core out, you need to take off the kick panel on the passenger side, it's the panel underneath the glove box. Then you'll also have to remove the glove box. Look way back in there and you'll see that there are small screws holding on the black casing of the air system. You'll have to remove that. Then, there will be some vacuum lines in the way, but they have a connector right there that you can just seperate them, easy as cake. Take off anything else you need, I can't remember if there is another piece of casing or not. But I didn't disconnect any more wires because I wasn't sure which ones were for the airbag. You'll notice that there is 1 bolt with a metal bracket holding the core in place. Leave it there for now, get under the hood of your car and look back in there. Remove the hoses if you haven't already, they have those cheap clamps that you have to squeez together with pliers. Carefull, putting your arms in and out of there, it's a pain in the *** and there are the black plastic things that hold the weather stripping on by the windshield. I took some of those out after I cut up the top of my arm and hands when they scraped on those. There is one small bolt back in there that holds another bracket that you will have to remove. Then go back inside the car and take out the last bolt and pull it out.

Installation is just the reverse, be careful no to bend the fins on the new core too much, you'll bend them some though, just no way around it.

I have the part numbers for the core somewhere here. If you need them let me know, but gmpartsdirect.com can find the right part easily. You'll need a 1/4" drive socket set because the bolts have pretty small heads, and I used a pair of long needle nose pliers to get at the stupid clamps on the hoses. I replaced those clamps with the band style that have screws, basic radiator hose clamps.

[ September 28, 2003: Message edited by: need4speed ]</p>

[Jaguar5822]

Hey, thanks alot, I really appreciate the help. Doesn't sound too bad, and definitely not worth the $300 I was quoted for the job.

James