Sup All,

My heater core is done for and I wanted to know if anyone has changed their's and can lend a little insight. How hard is it to get to and what has to be removed. I know I have to take apart the dash but how much of it and what side is the core on?? Any help would be appreciated, I want to get this done before it gets real cold.

Steve

 

With a couple guys, mine took like 10 hours . We had to take everything off just to get to basically the firewall and then somehow pry it out of the little holding box in. It's almost located in the middle bottom, if not a little off to the passenger side. Not a fun job and I won't do it again, but it did save me $400 so that's a plus.

 

Dam it took 10 hours, looks like my saturday might be shot. You said you had to pry it out of the holding box, what does it look like if you remember, is it a big black box??
Thanks for the info.

Steve

 

Yeah, it's a black box. It's the smaller one of two located at the bottom if I remember correctly.

 

Make sure that you ground the heater core as well. I don't know the validity of it but one of the guys in the local Max club (he owned a 3rd gen) kept blowing them (he went through 3 of them in under a year). The only time he stopped blowing them is when a mechanic suggested that he ground the heater core and its held up ever since. (its been like 8 months now I think).

Good luck with the install you got one hell of a job ahead of you.

p.s. if you have any special wiring that you want to install (audio, video, ect..) while all of the dash is apart you might want to do it then.

 

thanks for the info, just one more thing, do I really need to remove the bar that runs across the hole bottom of the dash, I was reading the FAQ's part but not sure if I really need to remove all of that. Thanks, I am going to try and see if I can do it today so I can pick up one tomorrow at the junk yard.

 

no you don't.....i didn't

 

Thanks that saves me ton of time.

 

Okay from what I can see, the heater core is in the box that is the middle of the three black structures under the dash. Correct me if I am wrong, it is the one right before the center where the radio would be. I have to remove the bolts from that box and the box to the left of it to get it out?? I tried reading the FAQ on bignissans.org but am confused on which boxes have to be removed to get the heater core out.

 

Being the noob i am....

What's a heater core?

"helpless noob" :P

 

It's the main heating unit that gives your car the heat. Looks like a mini radiator. Without the heater core, there is no heat

 

Thanks for the help aw89maxse, after you told me that just wiggle the lines and see what happens I figured out which box it was. I got it out in no time. Everyone says it is a hard but imo I didn't find it that hard.
Also DigitalDashMax what did you mean ground the heater core, how would I go about grounding the core???

 

Yeah, it's not REAL HARD, but very time consuming with all the screws and such

 

Well from what is was told by the guy that had to have it done he had to make sure that there was a ground wire attached to the heater core. I don't know but he stopped blowing heater cores.

 

My heat is not working, but how do I know it's my heater core? What does the water **** valve/solenoid do?

Thanks.

 

If it is your heater core your car would have leaking water/coolant from under the dash onto the passenger side floor. As for the other thing mention never heard of it.