Dynamo

well, i was trying to beat the station wagon in a race at a light (congratulate me i won! :lol: ) and then some "smoke" started spewing from all the vents and i was like oh gawd... so i pulled over and looked under the hood but nothing seemed broken. so i drove home... took it to the goodyear place and when they told me they wanted $140 for the heatercore and $1100 for labor i about crapped myself! i am just wondering if it is an easy task to replace this (i have never done anything like this before to any car) or were the mechanics trying to con me? thx in advance!

84whitevette

Ok, well I have an 84 and I'm putting new carpet in it, so I wanted to change the heater core. In my last car, the heater core went and ruined the carpet. I refuse to pay $400.00 for corvette carpet and then have it ruined. From all my investigating, I've heard the heater core is easy to do, but very time consuming because of all the dissasembly required. It only costs about $50.00 to $100.00 for the heater core. But the labor does run alot because of the time required. Did you leak coolant all over the floor? How many miles on your car... I'm just curious. Please post how it goes and any tips, becuse I'll be doing the same thing in 2 weeks!

Pete

vetteoz

Here are two links to start.
http://forums.corvetteforum.com/zerothread?id=531792
http://forums.corvetteforum.com/zerothread?id=572954

Do a search under heater core /C4 Tech / archived and see how popular this subject is.

84whitevette

Just out of curiosity, what would the consequences be to bypassing the heater core, by connecting the hoses at the firewall and plugging up the heater core? I never drive the car in the winter anyway... and this would keep the interior cooler in the summer too? Would the air conditioner be affected? This would be in regards to an 84.

luck38

my heater core blew last year, i bypassed it and have not had heat since then. i have had no ill effects.
I was quoted $500 by a local shop to do the heater core and AC (which never worked since i bought the car0.

HeeHaw89

I still have the original and I'm just waiting for this happen. Not looking forward to it, but you can be sure I won't be paying 1100 for someone to do it. At least we're entering into spring/summer so you won't really need heat for a while. Just bypass it for now and take your time to find a cheaper place or possibly try it yourself.

Black89

I have an 89 also and replaced the heater core last Fall. I got the core for $50 from Corvette Central and spent 3 evenings putting the new one in. Not too hard, just a ton of things to remove. Some people on the forum say they can do it without removing the dash, but I had to. This was new to me and there was no way to see or get my arms up there. The article from Corvette Fever (?) helped, plus what I learned here. Do a search in the archives, there is a lot of information available.