Heater Core Query

[peaandham]

To help give you an idea, this is my old heater core once I removed it, currently the plastic heater hose elbows have been removed, seals are still in place, the old foam has decintigrated a bit.



New core vs old.


New core with new seals, elbows and weather stipping foam added.

[keno_a]

Lift the LH carpet up unde the dash against the tunel, you will see resedue on the floor and soaked into the underlay

If you leave it too long or not know about it, the sun makes a lot of condensation which gets into your computer and terminals and can give you lots of trouble. I had the ABS , traction control and engine lights coming on often. Had it fixed and after the under felt completely dried up and solved the problem

[peaandham]

Mine shorted out my ECU.

[alchemysa]

Well I just finished this job in my Magna TF Auto wagon. Heater elbows and O ring replacement. What a pain. Took the best part of 2 days with a few side jobs along the way, such at cleaning the indicator stalk contacts. I think you'd have to do this job a few times to be able to do it in 1 day. Madmagna says it takes him about 4 hours which is amazing.

In my case I think it was crumbling leaky elbows that were the problem, rather then O rings, but anyway it obviously make sense to do both. I bought the elbows and O rings in advance from Madmagnas Mitsi-fix Ebay site. Fortunately the core itself was fine. (As has been stated elsewhere in this thread this is the usual situation). Interestingly the tell-tale carpet stains appeared near the passenger seat and door sill rather than up at the front of the footwell.

I basically followed Madmagna's procedure that is described elsewhere in this thread. It is absolutely essential reading for anyone contemplating this job.

But I'll add a few things while they are fresh in my mind. In no particular order. These may not be applicable to your particular vehicle...

- I didnt take the seats out. I found that pushing them all the way back gave me plenty of room, and I has happy to have them to sit on while working.

- Theres some pressed metal side plates running along the floor under the console. Removing all the screws from these except the two that are behind the seats was sufficient to get the job done.

- I didnt remove the auto shifter. Removing the rubber knob from the shifter was sufficient. Its simply held on by a small philips head screw on the front of the knob.

- I only removed the vertical pressed metal column on the drivers side of the console. This was sufficient to remove the heating box via the drivers footwell.

- I didnt take any photos as I proceeded but I did label many of the electrical connectors as they were disconnected. 'Mirrors', 'Radio', 'Hazard', 'Black box', 'Centre console' etc.

- Although you do have to remove all the nuts that hold the black air con/heating/cooling assembly, you only have to actually remove the central heating box to get at the core. You do this by removing the 4 (I think) black plastic plug clips that join the central heater box to the air/fan box.

- When you remove the dash you'll see a central ducting box on top of the heater box. This can be simply removed by pulling it straight uppwards. You'll also see a 'curvy' plastic duct under the heater box. Its held in place with a single screw and can be removed to make removing and replacing the heater box easier.

- Some of the push/pull cables need to be disconnected or removed in order to get components out of the way. Just do it. They are pretty easy to reconnect.

- Tools, nothing special, but a 'deep' 12 mm socket is just about essential as some of the nuts are on lengthy threaded bolts. You'll also want at least 30cm of extension bars to reach some of the nuts and bolts.

Whats really striking is how exposed the ECU is to a leaky core. Mitsubishi couldn't have done much worse if they had mounted it under the windscreen washer bottle. I think I got to mine just in time. The top of the ECU was coated in coolant. If you see stains on your carpet or start getting a damp smell in the cabin block off your heater hoses immediately. Its easily done by disconnecting the hoses under the hood where they go through the firewall. I just cut a couple of pieces of 'dowell' from some thin gum tree branches and used them to plug the hoses until I could get around to fixing things properly.


Edit.. a couple more things.

To remove the dashboard its essential you remove the plastic moulds on each side of the windscreen. Madmagna has mentioned this but its worth saying again.

And a 'too'l that I found essential is simply a thin magnetic pick up stick. Its invaluable for removing and replacing some of the screws and picking up the ones you will drop into hard to reach places. Mine is just 3 mm diameter and fits into tiny spaces. I made it myself with some wire, 3mm plastic tube and a small but very powerful neodymium magnet.