Car repair for the rest of us…
As some of you know, I recently purchased a used 1989 Chevrolet S-10 pickup (regular cab, some options). It had a few flaws that I was aware of—being 19 years old, brakes down to “needs some pads”, seems to have a hesitation problem); and a few that I became aware of—brakes were actually “Uh, yeah, replace all four sets of pads, the rotors, and your two front calibers are shot, plus your hoses are pretty far gone”, the heater core leaked like a sieve, AC system is out of whack, oh, and it may and or may not be leaking oil.
I let Midas deal with the brakes, and $900 later, I could actually stop properly. The heater core had been leaking long enough that the front passenger side carpet, padding, and soundproofing were all soaked through. I cut the infected areas out, and figured I’d deal with the leak eventually.
For those of you who don’t know, the heater core is part of the coolant system loop, and happens to be located in a duct behind the dash. The replacement instructions are, paraphrasing a little: drain coolant, unbolt and remove shroud, remove heater core. Installation is reverse of removal. Don’t forget to refill the coolant system with 50/50 coolant. Sounds easy, doesn’t it?
What this really should read is: While you’re picking up the heater core and the coolant, go ahead and buy the hoses that connect the heater core—you’ll understand why when you go to remove the core. Drain coolant to a level lower than the input of your heater core, any more than this is a waste of good coolant (or just going to take too long); now, remove the radio and unbolt the main computer from its home (trust us), unplug connectors, set computer and radio aside, then remove access panels covering the last two bolts that you didn’t know existed, undo these bolts (one of which will actually only be accessible because you removed the computer), remove the passenger side cabin light (this sucker burns like fire), unbolt the passenger side of the dash, and while tugging the dash forward, wrestle the shroud out of its home. Set this aside. Unbolt the two copper straps holding down the heater core.
Once this is complete, consume a beer/beverage of your choice. You’ve been working for an hour and a half.. Okay, now, go ahead and cut the hoses off of the core (I recommend just slicing through the hose and then splitting the chunk left over). Don’t bother trying to remove them neatly because you think you can reuse them. They’ve been on the truck 19 years. Now, wrestle with the heater core. It’ll come out of there once you align tab A with slot B. Don’t ask us where these are located. By the way, the heater core is lower than its inlet hose, so it’s actually full of coolant still. Be careful!
Reinstall the heater core. Again, this will all just sort of “happen” as long as you play nicely and remembered to eat your Wheaties. Oh, and don’t forget to tug the wires out of the way lest you wedge one between the core and the plastic housing and can’t figure out why you can’t get the housing to come off. Wrestle the shroud back into place. Reinstall the bolts. Don’t worry about that one you can’t reach and the one whose mounting clip you broke because you didn’t realize the one you can’t reach existed.
Connect the heater core back into coolant loop with the hoses you remembered to buy (you did buy them, right?). Refill radiator. You may have to do this a couple of times, as the heater core’s loop drains into the engine block and you had to drain all that to get the heater core out, remember? Refill the overflow bottle. Go ahead and throw the bottle of coolant in the truck. You’ll probably need it a few times in the next day or two as the air bubbles get out of the coolant loop.
Boy, that sounds like a lot less fun. But it’s also infinitely more useful.
