Pete M Posted February 5, 2023 Share Posted February 5, 2023 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
gogmorgo Posted September 2 Share Posted September 2 On 2/5/2023 at 11:14 AM, Pete M said: Any chance this video still exists somewhere? I spent a ton of time trying to research this and failed, other than one forum post that was never backed up suggesting there's a panel you can drop out without pulling anything else... I don't think that's true, half the fasteners for the heater section of the box are accessed from the top and I don't think you'd get at them with the dash in. Mostly I was trying to find a way to pull the heater core without opening up the a/c system. Eventually I realized I'd spent way more time digging through the internet than it would take to pull the dash completely, and my a/c system was discharged already for unrelated reasons so I just went for it. I followed a different forum post with broken pictures that missed a couple steps (notably in regards to the A/C evaporator), that loosely followed the service manual as well. In regards to pulling the dash they both suggest just removing the lower dash panel and right side kick panel to pull the main (lower) dash support bolt on the right side. But like most people I didn't find this to give enough clearance to get the HVAC box off the firewall. What I did instead of pulling the entire dash was to remove the top panel/vent cover so I could get at the upper dash bolts. Whether it's necessary to pull the two centre upper dash bolts I'm not sure but I did anyway, as well as the right side bolt. This allowed me to pull the whole right side of the dash back far enough that I had tons of clearance to get the evaporator side of the HVAC box off the firewall without pulling any more of the dash apart or dropping the steering column. Other than discharging and recharging the a/c system I think the whole job of changing the heater core could easily be done in an evening by most of us. I had everything apart in under an hour, although I haven't put it back together yet. My evaporator has clearly taken some foreign object damage by things that have made their way into the blower fan and it's got an oily smudge on it that suggests minor refrigerant seepage, so I figure I'll change it while it's out and now I'm waiting for that to get here. There's a lot of guides to changing the heater core out there and almost all of them recommend disassembling and removing the dash completely which adds many hours of labour to the job for no reason. Some of the guides even start the dash removal process by removing the seats, which is completely unnecessary and especially if you live in the salt belt and you've never had them out adds the risk of snapping the mounting studs which will significantly complicate changing a heater core for absolutely no reason. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Pete M Posted September 2 Author Share Posted September 2 not only is it not available, youtube won't tell me what channel it was on. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
89 MJ Posted September 3 Share Posted September 3 Darn. I need to do this too and was hoping the video would still be available. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
big66440 Posted September 8 Share Posted September 8 Pulling the dashboard is really not that difficult, even the first time I did it it took me no more than 2 hours to pull it off and most of that time was spent looking for fasteners and or ways to remove them. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
eaglescout526 Posted September 8 Share Posted September 8 On 9/2/2024 at 4:52 PM, Pete M said: not only is it not available, youtube won't tell me what channel it was on. Can you put the link into the way back machine and see if you’ll get some sort of trace to where it came from. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Pete M Posted September 8 Author Share Posted September 8 the url doesn't show up. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Salvagedcircuit Posted September 8 Share Posted September 8 17 minutes ago, Pete M said: the url doesn't show up. did you try editing the first post, copying the embed code and using a website link expander. then using that link in wayback machine? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Pete M Posted September 9 Author Share Posted September 9 is this what you're talking about? <iframe width="800" height="475" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/XdSgWt1Qi5Q" title="" frameborder="0" allow="accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share" referrerpolicy="strict-origin-when-cross-origin" allowfullscreen></iframe> Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Salvagedcircuit Posted September 9 Share Posted September 9 3 hours ago, Pete M said: is this what you're talking about? <iframe width="800" height="475" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/XdSgWt1Qi5Q" title="" frameborder="0" allow="accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share" referrerpolicy="strict-origin-when-cross-origin" allowfullscreen></iframe> The embed link is "youtube.com/embed/XdSgWt1Qi5Q" the official youtube link is: "youtube.com/watch?v=XdSgWt1Qi5Q" Unfortunately, neither show up on archive.org your best bet is to search your computers / archives for files. I find that Everything search works substantially better than windows search https://www.voidtools.com/ you can search by file type extension. So you can search for just .MP4, .MTS, .MPEG, .AVI, etc... Who knows, maybe you'll find it. Good luck Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Car Enthusiast Posted September 9 Share Posted September 9 19 hours ago, big66440 said: Pulling the dashboard is really not that difficult, even the first time I did it it took me no more than 2 hours to pull it off and most of that time was spent looking for fasteners and or ways to remove them. You don't even have to pull it all of the way out. Just loosen all the fasteners and drop the steering wheel down and you can get the heater core out the passenger side Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
gogmorgo Posted September 10 Share Posted September 10 Pull the lower dash panel and passenger side kick panel. Pull the upper dash panel at the base of the windsheild. Remove the passenger side lower dash mount bolt, and the right and centre upper dash mount bolts. This gives you more than enough clearance to take the evaporator/blower motor sections off the HVAC box and you can get the heater core out from there. Not really a big deal, again, I had the heater core out in under an hour. I don't have great lighting in the garage but if I remember I'll try to get photos as it goes back together. Maybe come up with a bit better guide than what's out there. I just picked up the evaporator today so hopefully I'll have time this week. It's getting to the time of year I'll start needing my defroster. I mostly just wanted to do it without having to open up the a/c system, but now that I've got everything apart I don't know that it's possible. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Pete M Posted September 10 Author Share Posted September 10 based on how many water intrusion leaks I found after pulling the dash out, I kinda recommend just pulling the dash out and doing it all. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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