dakonthemountain
California Chapter member
I'm also posting another thread on the Red Head steering gearbox replacement with photos..
First I want to thank you all for your encouragement and advice during this pain in the A!* project. I hope to NEVER have to do it again. I hesitated even attempting it but through the years on this and the "other" site I have gained knowledge and a bit of bravery to prompt me to try it.
that all said, the difficulty for the heater core itself is minimal, it's the dealer AC in the way that took so long, but thanks to a simple tip from Father Doug (THANK YOU A MILLION TIMES!!) I found the Chinese puzzle answer to remove only one bolt holding the right side of the dash in and "tweak" it just enough without bending it to allow the movement of the AC components (evaporator and ducting) out of the way to pull the heater box bolts/motor housing through the firewall. After that the rest went "almost" without a hitch. It took me a total of 10 hours to do this, but if I had to do it again it would now take MUCH less time as I know "the secret".. The only issue I've had was not tightening the heater hose clamp tight enough on re-install (I was just too excited to finish!) When I started the truck and heated it up to pressurize the lines, the hose leaked "just enough" and it channeled through the firewall on the inside of the truck. I panicked at first, thinking the new heater core was leaking! But when I opened the hood I saw it also leaking down the firewall quite a bit. I tightened it, and viola! finished. Because the insulators that were at the firewall were brittle and fell apart when I removed them I am going to silicone the openings around the core nipples to avoid this potential problem in the future. So, here is a link to some photos. I'm not as good as you guys in writing project thread descriptions, but I did put descriptions below each picture. I also didn't post specific photos here to avoid taking up a lot of bandwidth.. Cheers! and thanks again for all your help!
Dak
http://www.picturetrail.com/sfx/album/view/23861294
First I want to thank you all for your encouragement and advice during this pain in the A!* project. I hope to NEVER have to do it again. I hesitated even attempting it but through the years on this and the "other" site I have gained knowledge and a bit of bravery to prompt me to try it.
that all said, the difficulty for the heater core itself is minimal, it's the dealer AC in the way that took so long, but thanks to a simple tip from Father Doug (THANK YOU A MILLION TIMES!!) I found the Chinese puzzle answer to remove only one bolt holding the right side of the dash in and "tweak" it just enough without bending it to allow the movement of the AC components (evaporator and ducting) out of the way to pull the heater box bolts/motor housing through the firewall. After that the rest went "almost" without a hitch. It took me a total of 10 hours to do this, but if I had to do it again it would now take MUCH less time as I know "the secret".. The only issue I've had was not tightening the heater hose clamp tight enough on re-install (I was just too excited to finish!) When I started the truck and heated it up to pressurize the lines, the hose leaked "just enough" and it channeled through the firewall on the inside of the truck. I panicked at first, thinking the new heater core was leaking! But when I opened the hood I saw it also leaking down the firewall quite a bit. I tightened it, and viola! finished. Because the insulators that were at the firewall were brittle and fell apart when I removed them I am going to silicone the openings around the core nipples to avoid this potential problem in the future. So, here is a link to some photos. I'm not as good as you guys in writing project thread descriptions, but I did put descriptions below each picture. I also didn't post specific photos here to avoid taking up a lot of bandwidth.. Cheers! and thanks again for all your help!
Dak
http://www.picturetrail.com/sfx/album/view/23861294
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