1979 Z-28 4spd

[deus402]

Heater core replacement, step 6

now those pesky firewall bolts that everyone has a problem with. you have the three studs, mentioned in the tech article, but i also had to take out all the bolts from the engine bay side as well. don't forget the one on the upper right when looking at it from the front of the engine bay.

everyone is always complaining about how hard that one nut is to get off, but i had little problem using a 11mm ratcheting wrench, attacking from underneath the car. if you don't have ratcheting wrenches, you should go get some, they will change your life. seriously.

most of the pictures didn't turn out due to darkness, and a crappy camera phone with no flash, but i tried to show how i got the wrench in there.

 

[deus402]

Heater core replacement, step 6

now i went back into the passenger compartment, there will be two bolts holding the heater box to the firewall that need removed, and one bolt connecting the heater box to the defroster (i think?) vents.

here is the bolt on top. its the one closest to the tee in the vacuum line. you actually need to remove the one for vacuum line clamp too, so you might as well do it now. this pic is looking through the hole where the glovebox was.



the other ones should be obvious.

 

[deus402]

Heater core replacement, step 7

The heater box should be loose from the firewall. Do as the guide says and:

Carefully with a lot of force, pull the heater box from the firewall.

heh, those two things are usually mutually exclusive, but there is no better way to describe what needs to be done. if it won't budge, make sure you didn't miss any bolts in the engine compartment.

just pop it loose, then tilt it down allowing you better access to the top to remove the vacuum lines and heater control clips. be careful, damnit, those things are brittle and you are going to break them. don't lose the vacuum line clips either, i bet they are hard to find.

once you are sure that everything is disconnected, you can pull the whole heater box out.



i went with the "just mangle the old heater core to get it out" approach, so it actually came out pretty easy for me.

 

[deus402]

Heater core replacement, step 7

now you have to take the heater box apart to get at the bad heater core. there are 4 black screws that hold the "lid" (firewall side of the box) on, and then 3 more on the hinge bracket that need to come off.

the whole lid with the heater core should come loose now, but unbolt the ground strap screw, or unclip the stud from the case to get it out.

then remove the 3 (or 4 depending on how you did it) remaining screws for the bracket that holds the heater core to the lid.

wala.

 

[deus402]

Heater core replacement, step 8

now, i didn't heed my own warning to careful with the vacuum lines, so i broke one. i have to take the metal part of the heater box off to get to where it attaches to the vacuum actuator.



parts stores are closed at this hour of the night, so:



about 6.5 hours into the project right now, but that includes trying to get pictures, and i was posting as i was going along on another forum, so i kept running inside to dump the pictures to my computer, and i took a dinner break. so i would say this probably represents about 3 - 3.5 hours of actual work time to get to this point.

 

[deus402]

thats all i have until i get to it again tomorrow, so i will just leave a couple of pics of me parked next to another 2nd gen that i ran into at o'reilly's a couple weeks ago.

also note that someone parked too close to me and broke my grill. that was the only thing nice left on the car.... can't see it in the pic, but the bottom one cracked too and fell off a couple days after these pics were taken. that's the expensive one....

 

[andrewsreed]

oh my god... you drank that beer??

looks like a fun project tho... good luck

 

[deus402]

heh, had to try it. for i while i just left a couple in the fridge to try to get unsuspecting beer thieves at parties...

 

[91chevywt]

Cool progress, thats cool you are running it as a driver. Nice that its an original car, I would rather have something unmolested and rough like that then something thats been fixed half assed. At least you know for the most part what to expect.

Thats funny you drank that beer, I drank 1 year old budweiser and it was real nasty, can imagine that stuff from '94 would taste like drinking from a gun barrel

 

[Mwilson]

looks like a nice project & DD