My heater core needs replacing (just started making the odd tiny drip onto the ECU box). A few questions:
1/ has anybody here done this themselves?
2/ do you really have to pull the whole dash out of the car to get at the heater core? Or is it possible to strip out all the centre console + audio/HVAC centre stack and get yourself enough space to replace the core whilst leaving the dash in place??

I really don't want to pull the dash unless it is absolutely necessary.

you can leave the dash in the car, just need to remove glove box, de-gas air con system and remove air con box, drain coolant and disconnect the 2 heater hoses off the heater box from the engine to the firewall. they is a clip holding the heater core in place. thats it. can be done in a couple on hours core out and in. usually its the 'o' rings that fail

remove the hoses to the heater core, so long as global warming takes place as promiced you wont need it.

If you need to pull out the dash, PM me and I'll send you some pointers. I've ripped it out twice, and I'm currently doing as of this moment :P

Only takes me an hour or so to rip out / put back together now :P

surely you wouldnt need to de-gas the a/c. There would have to be a way to get it out.

you can leave the dash in the car, just need to remove glove box, de-gas air con system and remove air con box, drain coolant and disconnect the 2 heater hoses off the heater box from the engine to the firewall. they is a clip holding the heater core in place. thats it. can be done in a couple on hours core out and in. usually its the 'o' rings that fail

Thanks mate - that's what I wanted to hear :)


remove the hoses to the heater core, so long as global warming takes place as promiced you wont need it.

lol Yeah I'm kinda hoping Canberra will be the new Gold Coast in a few years time. Surfing in fronta Parliament House has a weird appeal


If you need to pull out the dash, PM me and I'll send you some pointers. I've ripped it out twice, and I'm currently doing as of this moment :P

Only takes me an hour or so to rip out / put back together now :P

Excellent. I'll try it without dash removal first and get back to you if I get stuck. But outa curiosity, why have you had to pull the dash so many times?

let us know how you go. im keen to do this myself

I've done it...I pulled the dash out saves having to get the A/C regassed

Pulling the dash out is not that hard

Wanna post a pictorial step by step guide of removing the dash, now that you've done the gearbox!!!!!!!?

1/ yes.i did mine about two years a go
2/ yes the hole dash has to come out
go buy your self one of the books on the magna .it has the
way to pull the dash out. it takes about 3-4 hours to pull the dash out

1/ yes.i did mine about two years a go
2/ yes the hole dash has to come out
go buy your self one of the books on the magna .it has the
way to pull the dash out. it takes about 3-4 hours to pull the dash out
Actually that's what induced the call for help. I have the factory 3rd gen manual. Looked up heater core removal, and thought 'yeah that's easy'. Then read the purple section at the top 'Pre-requisite to heater core removal. Remove dash assembly'. Oh crud.

It's not that I'm incapable of doing this (I do everything else on the car). It's just that my past experience with dash removal is that you end up with rattles and squeaks in the refitted unit. Just don't want to go there unless it's essential....

you can leave the dash in the car, just need to remove glove box, de-gas air con system and remove air con box, drain coolant and disconnect the 2 heater hoses off the heater box from the engine to the firewall. they is a clip holding the heater core in place. thats it. can be done in a couple on hours core out and in. usually its the 'o' rings that fail
All right guys and gals, finally got around to doing this. Gold medal to Daniel. :bowdown: You can indeed replace the heater core without pulling the whole dash. It took me 4 leisurely hours, and it was indeed the lower o-ring that had dried out to buggery. Thanks Daniel :D

A few words of advice for the rest of youse thinking of doing this:

the factory replacement heater cores do not come with the rattle proof foam on them. Buy yourself a roll of 5mm Raven self adhesive draft excluding foam from Bunnings and attach this to your new core before installing )otherwise you'll end up with core rattling round in the back of the heater box)

make sure you have a set of Torx bits before you start work - the core inlet and outlet ABS fittings use 8 Torx bolts

buy the inlet and outlet pipes, as you will find the old seals are hardened and cutting them out is not an option

you will need to pull the blower as well as the cooler to get the core out

save yourself buggering around with coolant. I used quick release woodworking clamps to just clamp off the heater hoses in the engine bay to stop coolant loss

make sure you get the AC degassed first, because when the cooler box comes out so does your AC gas

WOW! Well done on doing it yourself.

About the AC gas...do you reckon the radiator place would have regassed mine when they replaced the heater core? Maybe that's another reason they charge so much.:think:

don't have to degas the a/c if you pull the dash out. and you just have to do the bolts up tight

Is there a section in the workshop manual that you referred to to get to the unit?

don't have to degas the a/c if you pull the dash out. and you just have to do the bolts up tight
That doesn't sound right as the heater core is behind the cooler box and is removed by sliding it to the left out of its casing. And yu can only do that if you have the cooler box out of the way first. And for that very reason the manual says to degas AC even if you pull the whole dash out.


Is there a section in the workshop manual that you referred to to get to the unit?
Yeah, there is, but it's freakin hopeless. It just says 'remove dash (which is a whole section in itself, very detailed), degas air con, remove cooler box, remove heater core' and provides no text detail and only one drawing.

But I found it all pretty obvious once I worked out that I was gunna have to pull the blower to be able to buy enough space to pull the cooler box out.

Hi all,
I have just replaced the heater core on my KF Verada. I didn’t want to remove the dash so here is the alternative way to do it.
1. Deags the aircon.
2. In the engine bay, disconnect the 2 aircon pipes to the evaporator
3. In the engine bay, disconnect the 2 water hoses to the heater at the firewall
4. In the cabin-
a. Remove the glove box assembly
b. Remove the blower assembly
c. Remove the evaporator
5. The heater core can now be accessed.
a. Remove the screw that secures the core retaining clip
b. Remove the 8 torx screws that connects the 2 pipes to the heater
c. Remove the 2 pipes
d. Slide out the heater core.

Installation is a reversal of the removal procedure.

Take note of the following-
1. Before installing the new heater core, run the torx screws into the pipe mount holes as these do not come pre-threaded.
2. A new core requires some “anti-rattle” foam applied. Use the 5mm Raven draft excluding foam from Bunnings.
3. Install new seals on the heater pipe connections
4. Install new oring seals to the evaporator pipes.
5. The aircon will have to be recharged afterwards.

This job is not easy and requires some mechanical skill and flexability to accomplish insitu. Allow at least 5 hours to carry out, not including degas/recharge of the aircon. I did this job as my heater was leaking onto the passenger floor. The leak, as others have stated, was probably from the heater pipe seals, as they were hard and brittle. However I elected to replace the core as well as I didn’t want to do this job a second time.

Cost for this was- $130 degas/recharge aircon, $143 for the heater core from Mitsubishi ( this was $20 cheaper than an aftermarket core), $6 for seals and orings, $3.50 for some foam from Bunnings. Total cost $282.50- much better than the $1200-$1500 I was quoted by various places.

Thanks to Schnell for his tips.

Thanks for all the tips guys!!

Quick question... (I'll state I've never pulled a heater core out of a Magna so I don't know really what it looks like 'cept from the picture in the manual, and what it's made from.)

If it's plastic... please disregard this post.

Do you guys think that you could possibly weld the pipes to the heater core thus negating the "O" rings??
Making it one entire piece.

I was thinking of trying this (If it's metal) when my core starts dripping.

Steve

generally the cores are alloy and the inlet/oulet pipes are plastic.

nigh on all cars ive worked on.

If you are going to pull out the core, DONT remove the aircon ffs, this is the expensive way to do it and I would suggest the above poster did not have the system properly evacuated which is highly illegal.

Remove the dash, it takes an hour and a half tops, you can then clean up a little behind it

The Magna core has alloy core and plastic fittings, the "O" rings are about 3 bucks each from Mits

:stoopid:

mines doing this and ill be helping mal next week to fix it, wife has been saying to me for weeks have you been eating curry in this car turns out thats what my coolant smells like lol

A friend with a SI TJ Sports has a leaking heater core and wants to fix the problem himself. He has removed the glove box but does not know what else to remove. He needs pictorial help. Can anyone post some pics of the evaporator and blower unit?

Cheers.

he needs to remove the dash, in order to remove it without degasing the air con

A friend with a SI TJ Sports has a leaking heater core and wants to fix the problem himself. He has removed the glove box but does not know what else to remove. He needs pictorial help. Can anyone post some pics of the evaporator and blower unit?

Cheers.


I did a DIY of this job somewhere on here a while ago, should not be hard to locate

DO NOT take out the aircon FFS as some do but is a false economy and also stupid getting the aircon purged just to save removing a few screws

Cant find the diy. Did anyone else have any luck?

This is a fairly easy job..
Took about 4 hours when I did it on the wifes TH.
Was heaps of coolant to clean up off wires, ecu, carpet, etc etc.. We still get a wiff of coolant every now and again because I couldn't get to all of it (Yes I got frustrated after an hour or so)
Just be careful you don't break the little white clip that holds the heater core into the box or you'll get a lovely rattle when you start the car.. also make sure you check that the dash is on properly before putting everything else back in to avoid annoying lumps in the dash haha!

The service manual is fairly easy to follow when doing this..