Heater core help

OK, new to the forums, so bear with me. I have a '93 XJ country with a few miles on it, 175k. Anyway, I saw, with some degree of horror last week, a giant puddle of coolant on my passenger floor. I have come to the conclusion that it is the heater core after gathering information from this forum and others. I did the serach and didn't really find what I was looking for.

Anyway, are there any tips that you guys might have to make this easy? It looks impossble to get at, like half the dash needs to get cut off or something. Any help is appreciated. BTW, I have never done this before, though I'am experienced with working on my own cars.

It is an 8 hour job, the entire dash has to come out, completely out, of the jeep to get at the heater box, yes, it is as bad as it looks. Remove the seats first and go from there.
Use baggies for all parts assemblies and label them, digital camera is also a plus if you have one. It is an $800-$1000 dealer repair BTW... I would allocate an entire weekend just to be on the safe side.

shit, are you serious!? I guess I'm in for it. Would picking up one of those haynes/chilton manuals be a good idea?

Haynes manuals are worthless. Just take your time, remember where all the parts came from, and don't force anything. You'll get through it if you've got any mechanical skill

In general, you should seriously consider getting a Factory Service Manual for your model year. They're like $90 new, but you can occasionally find them used on ebay or in the sale forums for half that. There may be some useful info in the members-only area, but I wouldn't know...

In the particular case of the dashboard, however, not only will chiltons/haynes not help you, there is not a whole lot of information in the FSM either.

I did a lousy job of documenting my dash removal here:
http://www.naxja.org/forum/showthread.php?t=81466

Once the dash is off, you still have to remove the HVAC box. There are 5 (iirc) bolts on the engine firewall that have to be removed (only three pictured here):



The A/C lines have to be disconnected at the expansion valve before you do this. You will probably have to remove your washer fluid bottle to remove the A/C lines, and since your A/C system is probably R12, you will want to take it to a shop to have it recovered before you go disconnecting anything.

If you have ziploc baggies and a sharpie, it would be a good idea to use them.

Oh yeah, and most importantly, when it's time to buy the new core, I recommend you buy the "Four Seasons" brand. Or you could buy the Proliance/Transpro/Ready-Aire/Modine/NAPA one, and report back whether or not it fits. I would be interested in getting confirmation on my own finding

The core I picked up has a four seasons sticker on the box, but it says on another sticker trans pro/ready aire. Didn't realize about the a/c lines, glad you told me. Don't want to be poluting the earth.

Well, I got half way through and gave up for the day. What a PITA. Took 2 hours to get the dash out, would have been less if I had been looking under the hood for the bolts mentioned earlier under the washer fluid tank. Everything went smooth, no real big hiccups. Taking tommorrow off so we will finish on Monday. The core that I picked up looks identical to the one that I had pulled out, so it should fit well. Will let you know then, and hope fully take some pics too.

lilredwagn said:

Oh yeah, and most importantly, when it's time to buy the new core, I recommend you buy the "Four Seasons" brand. Or you could buy the Proliance/Transpro/Ready-Aire/Modine/NAPA one, and report back whether or not it fits. I would be interested in getting confirmation on my own finding

Click to expand...

I bought mine from NAPA about a year ago. Don't have any idea of the brand. I had to use zip-ties to hold the rubber piece that goes around the core on. Other than that it fit fine and I've had no problems with it.