Puddle of coolant on passenger side floor...

[immgeorge]

So I got into my car a few minutes ago and noticed a glistening green puddle inside my car on the passenger side floorboard... Its coming from under the dash. I'm guessing it has something to do with my AC/heat, because if I turn on the heater, foul smelling smoke comes out... If I turn on the AC, warm air blows out...

So, any suggestions? I can just add it to the list of repairs that need to be done...

thanks guys

[markd79ta]

Ouch!

Heater core replacement

[immgeorge]

yeah... that's what I expected to hear... um... do I want to know how much this will cost me?

[Christopherrr]

you can do it yourself if you're not afraid of ripping apart the dash...I got a new core and did the work myself in my old bird for about 120

[immgeorge]

speaking of doing it myself... I spent 20 minutes and got most of the dash apart. I found the heater core, and its covered in coolant... so... The only thing I haven't touched is the whole airbag deal... How does that come apart? Can I remove that outer shell without messing with the airbag? I can't have that thing go off and pay for it to be redid-ed (for lack of a better word)...

Thanks for your help so far!

[immgeorge]

In the words of Stuart from Mad TV:

"Look what I can do!!!"




OK. so now that I can actually get to the heater core, how exactly do I get it off? I took off the clamp and have the bottom freed, but something up around the hoses on top won't free up... Hrmm, this is a pain...

[ninetythreez]

n

a heater core is needed. the replacement is not that hard to do really. it looks intimidating but it is not hard. ive done this twice before. remove the glove box and you're home free at swapping in a new heater core. they are not that expensive to buy at autozone or advance.

[immgeorge]

To get to the core, I had to take off more than the glove box. I had to remove the whole dash. Now that the dash is off, the top of the core isn't coming off the black piece its secured to. I haven't tried to mess with it too much because darkness has set in... I'm gonna try again tomorrow, but if there are any secrets or tips, please let me know.

[cbrr_mike]

will an ls1 core fit?

[immgeorge]

I don't know if an LS1 core would work... My car is a V6, if that changes anything...

Well, after looking at it, something is holding the top of the core and I can't free it... Any ideas at all???

[fastTa]

I hate to ruin your already bad day but the heater core can be removed and replaced without removing the dash.

Here is a brief R&R article, and like the article says you may want to have a few cold beers ready!:

http://www.fbody.com/tech/details.cgi?id=42

[Rob B (shoebox)]

Wow! I don't think you had to take all that off!

I guess you took the heater hoses off? Did you notice a little clamp between the pipes right at the firewall? It has a small screw going down. You have to remove that to be able to pull the core into the interior.

BTW, my research shows all the heater cores are the same on all models 93-02.

[immgeorge]

Well, with the tools available to me, I couldn't get to the upper screws holding the black shield over it... But I found some wires that had become disconnected thus caused some of my AC problems... So it was all for nothing.

But I picked up the core today. And yeah, it was that clamp at the firewall holding it in still. I couldn't see it.. It's all good now... Now to put it back together...

[immgeorge]

I forgot to ask earlier... but when I drained my coolant, it came out brown... Not oily, just dirty brown, and there is some gunk floatin around in the radiator... I'm about to flush it out while I'm working on gettin the new core in...

My question is could the bad core have caused the coolant to turn brown? Its (the coolant) only 4 months old, 15000 miles since last flush...

[Rob B (shoebox)]

The cores seem to get gunked up and hold it in there. That contributes to it corroding and leaking. The coolant in the radiator can look pretty good, but when you just flush just the heater core, it can look real nasty.