Fixing heater core.

[Ed]

Hello and HAppy New Year,

Unfortunately my Smiths heater decided to spring a small leak over the Christmas period.

Are the cores able to be repaired by a radiator shop?

I dont think its a bad leak, only a small drop from time to time.

I think I already know the answer but I just felt like posting something.

Cheers

Ed

[coolaride]

ed

from what i know ... if its the smiths bullet style heater with the square core .. then yes it can be fixed ..

if its the round core type like the warmaride with the 2 opening doors then 9 times out of 10 it cant be fixed .

coolaride .

[Ed]

HEy coolaride,
thanks
yep its the bullet heater.

Cheers

Ed

[FC427]

Hi Ed Aussie Norm makes a repo of this style of heater so if your's can't be fixed he may be able to help you out with a new core for your smiths heater .........FC427..........

[mikey]

Can't help out with your leak but do have a leak story that is the same as yours.  Had a VH V8 SLE Dunnydore that developed a small leak from the heater core and could not be stuffed fixing it as this was my second SLE and had to pull the heater out of the first one and it was a pain in the rear.

Ended up driving around for ages with the radiator cap on the first click so the system would not get up to pressure and squirt the water out everywhere. (Melbourne weather ok for this most of the time)

Had an old tea towel just to get the few drips that did come out though, really worked well.    One day my sister asks if she can borrow the car, fine says me and I tell her "DO NOT DO ANYTHING  JUST TURN THE KEY AND DRIVE" ok she says...............

Got a call later that day "something wrong with the car water leaking out everywhere" can you guess what I said? you probably don't need too much of an imagination.

Her boyfriend had decided to check the bloody water and placed the radiator cap on fully (dammit) After driving around this let the pressure build up in the cooling system and boy did it squirt out of the heater core and into my nice thick carpet with lots of sound deadening.
If you know anything about commodore heaters then you will know that hot water always flows through the heater core, there is no water valve. To turn the heater off, the air is actually stopped from exiting the heater box and not done by stopping the water flow. IE turn off heater water still comes out at the same rate.

By the time I got there the car stank and there was that much humidity in the car it was condensing on the inside of all the glass and running down in little rivulets.

Well I did fix that core at the same time that I was pulling the front seats and carpet out. (dammit, dammit, dammit, dammit)  So much for doing a favour.


Cheers   M

[Ed]

thanks for the replies.

Mark may look into that if this one is no good.

Mikey, sounds terrible, i've currently got the teatowel mopping up the drip.  i should just get it fixed and put an inline tap on it...

Cheers

Ed