Hey guys, I was just wondering what the possibility of a heatercore hose with a slow leak leaking through the heatercore holes in the firewall and inside of the car.

I ask because about one month ago, I discovered a slow leak of coolant into my passenger side footwell. I replaced the heatercore being sure to install it properly and not damage it in the process.

I am not ruling out the possibility of a bad out of box heatercore, the reason I ask however is the leak seems to be occuring at the same rate as the old core, and when I inspected the heatercore hose that runs from the throttlebody I discovered some coolant that had soaked through the stainless steel braiding and dried/encrusted itself on the hose near the firewall.

 

so you're sure its coolant in the floor? could it be rain water from somewhere? i had a similar problem with my water heater in my house. i had rain coming in through the vent.

 

The small amount of liquid dripping onto my rubber mat is quite slimy in feel, and if you look at the drops coming off the heatercore cover, It's green. I thought it mihgt have been rain water until I observed this. The only thing that puzzles me though is that it doesn't have a very strong coolant smell

 

If it's coolant, and it's pretty rare, but if your firewall rubbers are loose coolant can spray out the end of your heater hoses and into the car. Most times it's the heater.

You didn't specify whether you cleaned out the box when you installed the replacement. Leftover coolant will take forever to go away. It doesn't burn off like water does.

 

if you have a coolant system pressure tester you can put about 15psi on it and then you will know for sure if you still have a leak.

 

The heater box was thoroughly wiped clean when the old core was pulled. I didn;t want that sickening smell lingering inside the car...

The only thing that makes me lean towards the core being bad out of box is the rubbers were worn out, so I sealed the heatercore barbs against the firewall with strip caulk.

 

I've worked cooling systems for over 20 years.
When I first started out, the metals we received from our suppliers was bullet-proof.
As the years went by, they all cut corners. Then we took a BIG hit in 2004-5 when copper went through the roof - from $0.90/LB to over $4.00/LB.
Most suppliers re-tooled for much thinner materials and even plastic/aluminum.

What I'm saying is it's very hard to find a decent rad/heater core these days that is all-metal and is well-made.

If you continue to have troubles with the heaters ( some call them cores ) you are buying, go to a rad shop and have them recore one/yours for you. It'll cost you 2-3 times more than the one you bought at the parts store, but you won't pull it again for a much longer time. Just ask them to block off the outside rows. I know, it seems like a lot of heating loss, but it will last much longer.
Greg

 

Well, that's pretty uhm, gay.

Couldn't have picked a worse time to do this crap either.

I'm in the DC area and we just got hit with what they're calling 'snowmageddon'. Got hit with a huge 20+ inch snow storm a week ago and two days ago got hit with a second storm which applied another 14+ inches. Oh and did I mention I JUST installed BRAND NEW CARPET!?

At least this job won't be so difficult this time around, since I elected not to re-install the top screw in the heater box cover.

 

WHOA there big fella. I didn't say your new heater core is bad, or that it will fail tomorrow.
You could still be getting residual coolant from your heater box from the original leak.
You could still smell the same.
You may even have not cleaned-up enough and be getting water from somewhere.
Don't be so disheartened. There's always light at the end of the wallet..err tunnel.
Got questions? Let me know.

 

From your previous post, you pretty much stated that the sky isn't blue without telling what color it turned .

Only real way to tell is to pull the cover again. I'll do that in a few days once some of the snow melts and report back.

 

I was only trying to keep your spirits up.
Sometimes you get bad parts, sometimes we install parts we didn't need.

 

Right now I'ts one of those two.

Either the heatercore wasn't bad an I replaced a good part or the new one was bad out of the box.

Either way, I do not regret replacing the heatercore regardless of It's condition since 20 - 25 years old seems to be the ripe age of retirement for them.

Just glad I decided not to re-install the top screw in the cover. Really bothered me feeling like I was doing a halfassed job but decided should I ever need to pull the cover again I could save myself a HUGE amount of headache by leaving out a useless part. Guess what, I was right

 

if you still have the old one you can pressure test it.