due to my having climate control and other issues personally with the odds of breaking other stuff, i decided to do my heater core this way.
Only need to make an enviromentally sound and secure cover for the work done.
what you see here is a pertty careful cut hole to expose all the goods within that have failed me.
remove upper intake
undo and scoot to the side the pass fuel rail
mark area to be cut, then cut the fire wall followed by the air box.
the factory cut out for the air box is pretty big also and retrofitted with a foam filler.
I inserted my new core then used 2'' sound deadening foam because i have a lot of it.
Now i need a nice looking cover and its done.
cut out and re-install work up to the point the pictures show was 3 man hours.
Take it or leave it. From now on though all my heater cores in this car will be less than an hour.
BTW, this is an NOS fomoco core i have had reserved on a shelf shipped to me back in 2003. so now i have no extra core for the white coug.
bash away, or, try it out. either way i have no idea why this is not a popular mod, it was so easy.
My angle is off so if tried, go a tiny bit more clock wise.
again, too easy.
here are the remaining pics for the moment, knocked off to go eat.
sorry the pictures are out of order, thread 1 is grouped right but out of order. thread 2 is grouped right but out of order.
the site uploaded them that way, not the order which i clicked on them.
here is a little etch and sketch of where the heater core is physically located.
Interesting!!! I agree a nice cover and you have it made.
Hmm I'm not sure how you'd cover that hole and allow access again. Do you think that cutting that hole caused any structural issues?
yeah, ive always worried about that large hole from the assmebly line right next to it where the AC core has that huge foam adder.
the hole i have now is 3.22 times larger than the original heater core opening.
I wont weld it closed, cant really see the point as i dont believe my engine will torque enough to fold it ,, LOL,,, its just a stocker
It's not the engine you should worry about, It's the suspension.
Find a Fox at the bone yard and cut a good piece of the firewall out, and make a panel from that. Then, it matches up. make it about a half an inch larger on all sides, make a gasket, and use short sheet metal screws to attach it. I can't bash you on that. Seems like a logical idea. Especially if you can make a nice panel and give it that factory look. I'm betting the firewall will be fine. Good work.
What Vinnie said.
X3 on what Vinnie said. If mine goes again on the Coupe or the Bird yanking the motor out and cutting that hole would be easier than going through the dash. Its bringing back horrific memories of the last time I did it.
Darren
Jay here we go. This panel is how we repair cut firewalls.The hole you made is not structural enough to cause any problems. I will call you when i get back to the shop. Thanks
(http://i740.photobucket.com/albums/xx46/proguns/002-81.jpg)
:hick::mullet::burnout:
my *revised quote* from the dealer for Air conditioning rework and heater core replacement was
$1440.00 excluding incedentals which would / could result from a car with this age.
basically i had to sign a waiver if they did the job.
I was told this was a decent price, granted im not into the whole "cheaper is better" game... they did tell me that he would put a tech on it that had experince in these older cars.
i can attempt to reverse the math seven differnet ways under the sun but i see this being no less than 80$/manhour job excluding materials.
one final tip..
when you cut the hole, and reach the plastic air box... the core kind sits in a "nest" so to speak.
when removing the plastic that allows the core to pull out, you ***WILL*** penetrate the Air conditioning air box section when removing plastic from the ***********LOWER LEFT side of the heater core nest.
end result will be a small opening the size of a nickle allowing unwanted air escape path from the air conditioning chamber.
You must seal up this small area with cable hole putty or something as i had to. I did not want the two different chambers having a chance of conflicting each other when air is dispursed.
If your car does not have EATC, this may not be true but for this car (20th anniv cougar), it was the case.
I will not go into the fine details of what plastic to cut where, its too complicated to explain. At the end of the day, if its in the way of pulling out the core, then dremal it out.
The trick is to insure you use really thick but squishy foam to retrofit the front of your core so it molds itself around the new opening you made. This will keep the air flow within the chamber / duct work as its suppose to. you dont want the air to leak out and fall behind your dash or leak out and go into the engine bay.
thats all...
next pics of the cover later today. Then i will button this up and call it good..........or maybe i will pop out my injector screens and swap in new ones since im in there.
Tom~ i just figured out how the IAC works on the trottle body, studied night before last. it just allows air to bypass the trottle plate at EEC specified parameters. pretty simple,, simple rules.
My plan is to re-install the section i cut out with "H" shaped rubber trim and silicone.
after i treat the edges of the metal with some corrosion prevention compound, i can then pop in my old cut out with this double sloted rubber grommet. should go fairly smooth,, only issue is i have to find the gromet.
I should have been clearer :hick:. What I meant was any structural issues with the heater box, since you cut a big hole in the box it might be hard to keep air in the box and out of the engine. It seems like you may have solved that problem with the gasket seal and the foam though.
here are a couple shots of the cover.
my youngest boy punching through the second foam layer thats 1/2'' thick that will reside on the exterior but under the metal cover we made.
let me know what you all think
no, seriously, ive often wondered how a car can get away with so many big ass holes everywhere considered the structure.
this looks stupid,, that bright aluminum silver thing on the fire wall.
I may spray flat black on it, that might work better for the "looks part"
i want it to draw some attention so someone says "hey, whats that".
the way it is now, it screams "HEY Look here"
Just me, but I think cutting a piece out of another car looks less "eye catching". Just like what Tom posted up.
painted it black,, looks much better,
car runs and puts out nice heat again minus the leak.
one last update, here is the cooling chamber penetration i mentioned earlier that needs minor seal off prior to adding a retrofit sound deadening or foam forming seal.
I like your solution. The cover plate is a good idea, and looks fine now that it's black.
Nice one!
i try, the black plate becomes nothing but a blurr as it blends in the background with the silver intake & throttle body in front.
looking back on it, im happy i did it this way for the following reason:
~i decided that the time it would take me to do my first heater core the right way per the shop manual would have take me probably a whole weekend off and on becaue knowing my luck, something would break, fail to work after assembly or "stuff" would just happen.
i thought long and hard about going into the fire wall, examined the *body and chassis shop manuals to become familiar with & confirm what layers of stuff were in the way , then visualized the time it may take to get to the core. I concluded i should be able to get to the core in an hour. It took a little more like 2 hours to get to the core because i wanted to be careful and selective in the air box cutting,, the metal and sound deadening was easy with a nice thin cuttting disc and side grinder. Inside of three hours, core out and new in.
Disadvantage to this........ you have to remove the upper intake and the FPR (or pass fuel rail) to get to the core next time. Far less "risk" & "work" work imho.
I'm cutting that hole if mine goes out again.
This. Id WAY RATHER do this!!!!!
Just wondering Vinnie did you not see my post on this way back. I use a cut piece of the fire wall from a JUNKYARD CAR. Thank you
Yeah, Tom. I saw that. That would be the direction I would go as well.
Cotta love you VINNY. Thanks
This is a really good idea, despite what some might think.
A cut out piece of firewall (like Tom used) would be a good solution to make a clean good looking cover. The only thing I can think of, is how hard its now getting to find donor cars anymore sitting in junkyards (especially me having a 1980 T-bird) and secondly... all the yards I go to won't allow power tools to make easier work at getting that section removed cut off the firewall.
I just replaced a heater core today on another 80's Ford....took me 10 minutes.
how did you do it?
I'd guess it was a non ac foxbody
Hi guys,
I put a new core in my tbird last week. I did the same as jcassity did.
Just some things i noticed:
1) The sheet metal for the firewall is really thin. Like less than .060 in thick. So I wasnt worried about structural integrity after I noticed that.
2) There is A LOT of plastic that needs to be broken/cut/removed from the back side of the HVAC box to get the core out. I spent half an hour just chipping away a little more here, a little more there.
3) I actually got the old core out without pulling the fuel rail off.
4) You can almost get the new core in without moving the fuel rail, but the fuel pressure regulator gets in the way. So i did have to pop that off. PS a claw hammer works really well for prying the rail up
In the end i think this is a much better way than going from the interior. Cuz really once I got the new core in, I knew I was home free :)
good to hear,, next time im up in Vienna or Tysons corner I may see you running around
I just found a donor car to make a access panel cover bigger then the portion of firewall I'll be cutting out. I'll be tackling this project in the near future and take a few photos along the way for reference.