Hey fellow AMCers, my 02 KJ2 Verada AWD,
lately everytime I turn my A/C on i've noticed a bit of a smell, and I thought it was coolant, so my assumption was heatercore, but after knowing that J series improved the heater core system, i noticed it wasnt that, but i spotted this oil leak in the passenger footwell area and it only does it when I turn the A/C on, any ideas?

At first i thought this was a big concern cause assuming heater core, but if it was then car would have heating problems but it doesn't. Only leaks when A/C is on.

The side it is leaking from is in the passenger footwell, but to the centre of the car.

http://img51.imageshack.us/img51/1710/img20120320001.jpg (http://imageshack.us/photo/my-images/51/img20120320001.jpg/)

It's not coolant, its more of an oily texture cause when i wiped it off from the sponge sorta protection between the carpet and the floor cause it was sitting there for so long, but it doesnt smell like coolant. I'm not sure if its the the pipe where it leaks out the moisture for the A/C unit.

If anyone has an idea, that would be great. If so is it hard to change?

If your air con stops working over the next few days, you will know you have a leak. The gas escapes but the lubricant oil in the system doesn't.

If your air con stops working over the next few days, you will know you have a leak. The gas escapes but the lubricant oil in the system doesn't.

This oils been leaking for the past year i never noticed till the smelt come up few weeks ago cause the oil has been sitting there..

The gas isn't leaking cause i got that recharged last year,, but even if it does stop is the pipe easy to change?

Do some exploring in your car and follow the dribbles up. Only way to find where it is coming from.
Once you know what is leaking, you can start asking "How Much" and "How Do I Fix It?"

Could just be coolant where the water has dried out leaving the chemicals in the coolant to dribble down, that can look like oil, but I can't see your car from here - it needs a good close eyeball with a torch.

Doesn't look like overflow from the tube that takes condensation out of the A/C.

so it could be my heatercore?

Do some exploring in your car and follow the dribbles up. Only way to find where it is coming from.
Once you know what is leaking, you can start asking "How Much" and "How Do I Fix It?"

Could just be coolant where the water has dried out leaving the chemicals in the coolant to dribble down, that can look like oil, but I can't see your car from here - it needs a good close eyeball with a torch.

Doesn't look like overflow from the tube that takes condensation out of the A/C.

As I've said it only leaks when I have A/C on... otherwise it won't leak at all, but I see the point your making :)

Now i also want to wonder, how does the climate control work if the A/C is on? say if i adjust it to 25 degrees and A/C on does that mean heater is automatically shut off and is dead cold? or does it still use the heater core cause of the temperature being adjusted to 25 degrees?

I'm not losing water within my radiator to, topped it up bout a month or two ago and still is the same.. levels havent dropped.

Also the fluid that is put into the A/C system is there a seperate reservoir for it to sit in where the gas has nothing to do with the fluid? or is it just in the system along with the gas? cause if there is some sort of reservoir for the liquid than that maybe it but its wierd cause my A/C is fairly cold, but leaks that shit out...

Chow mate - there's only one place where where fluid runs into the firewall - and that is where the heater core is. Next to the entry point for the coolant lines is where the aircon lines enter the cabin. The only fluid that runs through these lines would be the coolant for the heater core. A little bit of oil is used however for the o-rings around the air-con pipe connections. I think the coolant has mixed with this oil and leaked out. If its not coolant then you may just have a water leak (usually comes through the left drip tray under the windscreen) but if that was so then a) you'd smell the water when it was damp and b) it wouldn't be green and oily.

See this diagram.
http://imghostr.me/images/7c4OG.jpg
http://imghostr.me/images/qJZxv.jpg

Chow mate - there's only one place where where fluid runs into the firewall - and that is where the heater core is. Next to the entry point for the coolant lines is where the aircon lines enter the cabin. The only fluid that runs through these lines would be the coolant for the heater core. A little bit of oil is used however for the o-rings around the air-con pipe connections. I think the coolant has mixed with this oil and leaked out. If its not coolant then you may just have a water leak (usually comes through the left drip tray under the windscreen) but if that was so then a) you'd smell the water when it was damp and b) it wouldn't be green and oily.


Theres no water leak at all cause i dont smell dampness. But as I've mentioned, it only leaks when A/C is actually on, no matter what temp its set at, if A/C is on it'll leak, if not then it wont leak at all regardless the temperature and fan speed.

I'm not losing water within my radiator to, topped it up bout a month or two ago and still is the same.. levels havent dropped.

This is hard to guage as coolant expands and contracts as it heats up and cools down. And even if you had a slight heater core leak - I'd doubt you really notice a drop in coolant levels in the radiator. You'd have to loose at least 300-400ml before you'd realise. (Radiator holds around 4L of coolant)

This is hard to guage as coolant expands and contracts as it heats up and cools down. And even if you had a slight heater core leak - I'd doubt you really notice a drop in coolant levels in the radiator. You'd have to loose at least 300-400ml before you'd realise. (Radiator holds around 4L of coolant)

yeah but you get what i mean right? it only leaks when A/C is on and it kinda looks like the fluid they put in the A/C systems

I found out its the heater core. Asked Mal and got a mechanic to check on it and its definitely a heater core ;-(

That is coolant, have seen this many many times and can 100% say is coolant.

Nothign to do with aircon, you may find it is just building up and dropping then for some reason as the heater core is always having flow

That is coolant, have seen this many many times and can 100% say is coolant.

Nothign to do with aircon, you may find it is just building up and dropping then for some reason as the heater core is always having flow

So it may not be leaking? Cause there's just rubbish built up in there? Or still needs to be replaced? If so do i have to release the water hoses that hook onto the firewall? Will it leak into the car when its removed?

So it may not be leaking? Cause there's just rubbish built up in there? Or still needs to be replaced? If so do i have to release the water hoses that hook onto the firewall? Will it leak into the car when its removed?

So it may not be leaking? Get a pressure test on the cooling system. This will show you if it is leaking.

From your questions though, I would suggest you get someone who knows more than you do about Magnas, to fix the problem.

PS. The "oil" in the pic will be dried up coolant if the core is leaking, leaving the colour and glycol additives behind. Glycol is an antiboil/antifreeze in the coolant and looks like oil in the pure state. To see if it is oil or coolant, get some on a clean piece of white cloth. If it washes out with water, it is glycol from coolant, if it doesn't, it's oil. Easy.


If you are sure you are not using any coolant, what you found may be left over from a repair by a previous owner. A pressure test will tell.

I found out its the heater core. Asked Mal and got a mechanic to check on it and its definitely a heater core ;-(

I told you this without even seeing pictures lol...

It is coolant, I see this all the time, it will not be pouring out, it is most likely either hte seals leaking or the tubes that go into the core, may be the core but doubt it

Is dash out job, tackle it if you wish but is not easy if you dont know what you are doing

I did one of these only yesterday

It is coolant, I see this all the time, it will not be pouring out, it is most likely either hte seals leaking or the tubes that go into the core, may be the core but doubt it

Is dash out job, tackle it if you wish but is not easy if you dont know what you are doing

I did one of these only yesterday

I fixed it i think, well hopefully, it wasnt the core leaking, it was the adapter pipes coming off the core, i replaced both upper and lower core adapter pipes, silicone'd in the o-rings into the slot where it sits in the adapter then silicone between where it meets the core, bolted it up, took it for a drive and so far so good, gonna give it a few days to see how its gonna hold up, if it leaks i know i'll just get a new core and o-rings :)

Best of all! Dash didnt have to come out! :d

Best of all! Dash didnt have to come out! :D but took me yonks! straight after work from 5pm till 12am..... cause i thought it was the upper leaking but it wasnt, it was the bottom and then had to take them out of my wrecked TJ and yeah so far so good :D

So Chow, how did you manage to remove teh AC unit without degassing, or did you have the system purges, sealed so you could then get to the heater

Also, Silicone on that part of the car is somethign you will regret, you never seal these in, you use new pipes and seals. The coolant will over time destroy the silicone, if the seals have not seated properly because of the silicone then they will leak agian. Bad move

At the end of the day, is far quicker to pop a few screws and bolts and lift out the dash, certainly beats degassing and also lying under the dash for hours.

Removing the dash isn't a very difficult job. It's just time consuming. I've removed 3 dashes by now and if you work at a good speed you can remove a dash within 2 hours. The first time I removed a dash it was at the wreckers - got there around 145pm, and by 4pm I had ripped the dash, looms & servo's out for a climate control conversion. Now I can remove a dash a fair bit quicker as I've done it a few times. Again - not difficult - just got to know where the screws are and remove them. I'd add on an extra 30-45mins to remove the heater/blower etc boxes behind the dash etc. They are basically held on by a couple of ring nuts - the trick is to know which order they come off as these boxes are all connected in together.

Glad it stopped leaking and I don't mean to have a go at you mate, but I'd fairly sceptical about whether this last in the long run.... Usually most people just bypass the heater core until they the have the time and/or money to get it fixed. You just need to set aside a weekend or a full day. I could've done my climate conversion in one long day had I not had a few hiccups (mostly my fault with forgetting where all the servo's & sensors go and wiring in my headunit) .

So Chow, how did you manage to remove teh AC unit without degassing, or did you have the system purges, sealed so you could then get to the heater

Also, Silicone on that part of the car is somethign you will regret, you never seal these in, you use new pipes and seals. The coolant will over time destroy the silicone, if the seals have not seated properly because of the silicone then they will leak agian. Bad move

At the end of the day, is far quicker to pop a few screws and bolts and lift out the dash, certainly beats degassing and also lying under the dash for hours.
I made sure they seated properly. Took it for a drive and its good. The A C unit i moved to the side, took my front seat out and then got them out. Its doing well for now. Just don't really want to spend money yet as i need the heater so i just fixed it for now.

Its just a temp fix. I mean may not be the way to go and i need the heater so i had to do it. The other TJ core looked like its been replaced before so might use that one, who knows.

The actual cost for the seals is dirt cheap. They're only a few bucks from Mitsu.

The real cost is the labour for this job.

And I think Mal was asking about what you did with the air-con gas in the lines that you removed. They contain R134a air-con gas and the minute you take the lines off it will be released. This is actually illegal to release into the environment, but that isn't the real problem - its do with the receiver/drier because if they are exposed to air for too long then they loose their moisture and become completely useless. If you released the gas and didn't seal up the lines then you're going to need a new receiver/drier bottle.

A lot of nay sayers. lol


Good you fixed it. Let me be the first to congratulate you. I hope it is a permanent fix. (And that the A/C still works)

but after knowing that J series improved the heater core system

Rofl, who told you this garbage? My late 02 GTV wreck was leaking hardcore... Dried coolant everywhere.

A lot of nay sayers. lol


Good you fixed it. Let me be the first to congratulate you. I hope it is a permanent fix. (And that the A/C still works)

I did not remove the gas. Just pushed the unit to one side :) so far its holding up so its good. The aircon still works :)

Rofl, who told you this garbage? My late 02 GTV wreck was leaking hardcore... Dried coolant everywhere.

Dean, before you extend your knowledge to the forums please check what is being said and what is fact.

It was the TL (so you were partly correct) which had a slightly different core, this was to facilitate the different location of the temp sensor on the TL models, the sensor clips to the core instead of being pushed up from under the core. A lot of the later J series did get this core so in a way Chow is actually right. So who should be laughing at who.

Also dean, was the core leaking, were the seals leaking or were the pipes cracked, I ahve also seen where heater hoses are not sealing and spraying coolant back into the holes in the firewall where the hoses come out, still looks like a heater leaking thus why I ALWAYS get out my scope and find exactly where the coolant is coming from BEFORE I start ripping bits out of the car

Chow, you are very lucky you did not bend and split the high pressure aircon line, you would have ended up with a face full of gas and oil at the very least. It worked for you and that is great but to anyother person who tries to do their own heater pipes and seals, please do not attempt this as Chow was simply very lucky to get away with this. Most of the time it will not end up this way.

For the record, it is rarely the core itself that leaks, 90% of the time is the seals and rest is either perished pipes or core. To remove the core you would have to at least move the box back from teh firewall once the aircon box has been removed, how Chow was able to move his far enough is a mystery but either way he did and it worked for him on this occasion

Looked like both actually... Some dodgy bastard had done a bypass so I'm guessing its done the seals, they've bypassed and the pipes have cracked from running dry. soaked in coolant.

Dean, before you extend your knowledge to the forums please check what is being said and what is fact.

It was the TL (so you were partly correct) which had a slightly different core, this was to facilitate the different location of the temp sensor on the TL models, the sensor clips to the core instead of being pushed up from under the core. A lot of the later J series did get this core so in a way Chow is actually right. So who should be laughing at who.

Also dean, was the core leaking, were the seals leaking or were the pipes cracked, I ahve also seen where heater hoses are not sealing and spraying coolant back into the holes in the firewall where the hoses come out, still looks like a heater leaking thus why I ALWAYS get out my scope and find exactly where the coolant is coming from BEFORE I start ripping bits out of the car

Chow, you are very lucky you did not bend and split the high pressure aircon line, you would have ended up with a face full of gas and oil at the very least. It worked for you and that is great but to anyother person who tries to do their own heater pipes and seals, please do not attempt this as Chow was simply very lucky to get away with this. Most of the time it will not end up this way.

For the record, it is rarely the core itself that leaks, 90% of the time is the seals and rest is either perished pipes or core. To remove the core you would have to at least move the box back from teh firewall once the aircon box has been removed, how Chow was able to move his far enough is a mystery but either way he did and it worked for him on this occasion

Thanks Mal :)

I recently did my seals, and while it took me 4 cruisey days, my only regret about taking the whole dash out and putting it back in is that I didn't do a blackout cluster or climate control conversion at the time :P

Essentially, car smelt like shit, wet dog, coolant. Figured the seals were boned. Drove to mits on my lunch break on a thursday, grabbed 4 seals incase I broke 2. Awesome, 6 bucks all up. Go home that night, taking the car apart, going until 10pm. Working on car again on the friday from 6pm til maybe 12am. By this stage I was at the half way mark. dash was out, had the heater core in my hand. Couldn't get the two pipe fittings off, as I didn't have the required screw driver. BUT. my drill set does. remove and insert new seals. basically put the core back in, broke a bit of the shifter mechanism. Went to wreckers on the saturday morning, grabbed the shifter mech. went to work, came home at 12pm, installed the new shifter, put dash back in, spent 4 hours fitting the pipes to the heater core and putting clamps on them. by saturday night (or maybe sunday, sure it was saturday though) I had my car in a drivable state. No smelly coolant, nothing. Except for my steering wheel which was out of alignment by one notch.

It can easily be knocked over in 2 days if youre a beginner, provided you find a decent how to guide, make use of the service manual despite the illustrations being absolutely shit, and search the forums. When I obtain a blackout cluster and maybe the parts to do a climate control conversion, I'll do a tutorial.

It's a really easy job, unfortunantly it is very time consuming if you've only done it once or never. Poor mal says it can be done in 2 hours or so, but he's done more dash-outs than there are magnas :P No disrespect, I'll have to pay him a visit and buy stuff.

I reckon if I had to take my dash out, look behind it and then put it back in, i could have it done in 1.5 days. Start Friday after work, go until maybe 12am, resume at 9am, go until the arvo. But thats not rushed but not doing it beer in hand either.

Doing the seals is good in my opinion because it crosses of one of the select few issues that happens with this car. I'm glad I nabbed my seals in time, I reckon they had started leaking in the couple of weeks before I did them. enough for there to be coolant on the sound deadening and a small build up on the core radiator where the seals are, but there was no rust or anything. i feel good about it too because if I wanna take the dash out, I know what needs to be done now.

Like I said - if you're fairly focused and don't slack off much, even as a beginner this can be knocked over in a full day (8am to 8pm or later) but allocating 2-3 days gives you plenty of time if any problems arise. I took two days but that's because I also broke the plastic piece on the top of the shifter and had a few wiring hiccups with the climate control conversion.

Removing is easy - fitting it everything back was the difficult part! You don't really need much of the service manual though. With the dash you just remove all the front bits and panels (cluster, console, heater, vents, kickpanels etc) and you'll find pretty much all the bolts you need to get the dash out. Then its just two more bolts under the top dash tweeter pods/covers and then removing the instrument/cluster loom as this will get stuck when you try and remove the dash.

Heater core can take a bit more time getting to because you need to dislodge the heater unit and the blower but doesn't take too much effort - just being observant and not forcing anything with too much force. Surprised it took you 4 hours to hook the hoses back up. These aren't very complex bar the clips which can be slightly tricky.