Quote Originally Posted by bbig119
...Its not difficult getting to the heater core. Its only slightly tricky to get the new one in place. Its just a total bitch(or was in my case) to get the pipes with new gaskets installed far enough into the core to allow the aluminum lock to fit in place...
Well, got it done today, mostly per Bentley. Removed rear and front consoles, radio/heater/AC control panel, and knee panel under the steering wheel. After disconnecting the plugs and cables at its rear, I folded the entire radio/AC/heater panel upside down/backwards and rested it on the open glove box lid. Took digital pics to keep straight what went where.

I did not disconnect the 3 hoses at the firewall, but rather put down a rag to absorb any spillage from the old HC. Then used a shop vac to suck any spillable coolant from the three old HC fittings, so when I pulled the HC out of the housing, it was not full and did not spill.

Fitting the new HC was easy: The left side collar was useful to seat the two alu. tubes with O-rings into place. For this, used long needlenose pliers to squeeze the collar up against the nylon housing of the HC, pushing the alu. tubes into proper seating and enabling rotation of the collar down into the locked position for insertion of the locking bolt, which I Lock-tited.

The biggest problem was re-fitting the rear part of the HC housing, as neither of the upper corners seemed to want to seat. The little silver clamps fit into grooves on one side of the housing, then simply push into place IF the housing shells are properly seated. Bentley shows a couple more clamps than my car actually has places for.

I started up the car to see if everything worked properly, but had defroster heat only on the left side. Messed around with this until I got a hunch, then tapped the accelerator pedal to goose the rpm, whereupon got proper heat from all all ducts and all heater settings. There was cavitation in the system, since the new HC went in empty, but all was well after gunning the engine once or twice, and topping off coolant at the reservoir. Bleeding the coolant system with the nose parked on an up slant would probably have prevented the cavitation.

While in there, I wish I'd done more to clean the HC housing than just wiping it out with a soapy rag, as there is still some stale coolant smell from the ductwork. My plan is to vacuum a string through each of the various ducts, then tie it to a soft wet sponge or cloth and draw it through each duct, to sop up and clean out the dried coolant. Anybody tried this, or done duct cleaning? How about spraying some disinfectant in there, or using long bottle brushes, etc.. to scrub the ducts?