Question before attempting heater core replacement

Looks like this weekend is shaping up to be a good one to replace my leaky heater core. Its a little sooner than I expected, but I've read through and bookmarked relevant posts/articles describing the procedure.

I'm just worried that I'll start tearing apart the dash and only figure out 5 hours into the project that I'm missing some critical part/tool to do the job.

I've got the new core(3 pipe one) + 1 o-ring(not sure what its for). I'll use this time to do a switch over from green coolant(PO) to new blue stuff so I need to pick that up.

Are there any other parts/supplies that I'll need for this job?

Check your hoses and hose clamps that go into the heater core outside the firewall and make sure they are in good condition befor you go moving them around too much. While moving them around inside the car, I cracked one close to the clamp, but that just means that they needed to be changed anyway, but the movement finished them off. It's just something else you might want to check after you get everything back together. I don't know if it's recommended to disconnect them first, or not, but I never did. I also fogot to connect one of the temperature sensors, and wound up with hot air blowing at the same time the A/C was on, so make sure you connect everything back. You might want to take some pictures too. This helped show me how everything was connected before.

it looks like a big job to me, I dont know any secrets but would like to hire you to do mine after you find the secrets :D patience and a good memory are needed items, the hold down clamp for the outlets I read can be fussy and not line up correctly.

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Originally Posted by 632 Regal

it looks like a big job to me

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It looks much worse than it is. I set aside a weekend to do mine, started on Friday evening and finished on... Friday evening. This included cleaning out a gallon of leaked coolant, extracting the inevitable dead leaves and other trash, and having to cut the heater box (following the instructions that came with the new matrix) because the original matrix was discontinued. I took pictures along the way, thinking I'd put up a Web page about it. It turned out to be such a non-effort that it wasn't worth bothering, and the pictures didn't show anything that wasn't obvious. It all comes apart and goes together surprisingly easily.

The hardest part, as I recall, was wriggling the console back into place past the seats and dash and such. At one point it looked like it was never going to go, and then it sorta popped into place and all was good.