I have a 2003 disco II.
Started smelling coolant this morning. By afternoon I was hearing a leak coming from inside the cabin near the passenger foot area. The carpet there is wet and the fluid smells of coolant.

Help and Thanks!

Tim

 

Heater core or heater core hoses are leaking.

 

what are my repair options?
Would rather not use a shop.

 

You can do it yourself. From what I hear it is a pain to replace because of where it is at. I would first try to identify where the leak is coming from. You may be lucky and it might not be your heater core leaking.

 

Temporary you can splice heater hoses together under the hood. No heat, but you can drive it. Dash is built around the heater core, see the RAVE shop manual set.

 

as a note-I replaced the plugs and wires this weekends by following the how to on here. Not sure if I could have knocked something lose when I was doing that.

 

how would I splice the hoses? any chance I broke something with my plugs and wires repair last week?

 

That would not cause this problem. Your heatercore has failed or the o-rings to the heater hoses have failed. Coolant is constantly running through the heatercore so if there's a failure it will leak onto your passenger side floorboard. You can try to get a quote from an indy shop but the one near me for example wanted $1200 to do it. I ended up doing the job myself. It's a bit of a pain to say the least but not too terrible. RAVE manual calls to remove the dash/center console to get to it. There is a short cut method though that I myself have not attempted but have read about. Let us know if you decide to tackle this yourself so we can provide as much help as possible.

 

I will for sure be doing it myself. THe more info the better. Plugs and wires last weekend. Heater core this weekend. Owning a disco is a part time job!

Thanks!

 

Okay when I replaced my heater core I wrote down some tips for others on another forum. Here is the link to the thread. If you read further it will also talk about the short cut method that i was later enlightened to. Here's the link. http://www.discoweb.org/forums/showt...ht=heater+core . You can purchase a eurospare heater core on ebay for about $130, it will come with o-rings as well.


My tips:


1. Don't be fooled, even if it's the o-rings you'll need to remove the dash. The heater core is held in place by the pressure the heater pipes put on it upon assembly.

2. There is no short cut to this job(Oops). Believe me, I even tried to saw the plastic in the dash, pry off the heater pipes etc. All you will do is damage the core and pipes and you'll just be adding more stuff to replace.

3. Follow the Rave, it seems like a big job but in the end it is not that bad. Once you get off the support brackets to the dash, there are only about 4-6 main bolts holding the dash in the place.

4. The biggest hiccup I had was taking off the steering wheel. I used bp blaster. Take a rubber hammer and beat it from the back(THE BACK) of the wheel at 3 oclock and 9 o'clock positions., once you get the center locking nut off of course.

5. Be careful with the screws holding the heater matrix bracket and the pipes bracket, they strip very easily.

6. You'll need to bleed the freeon out of the AC. I used a valve stem tool and bled it slowly from the high and low pressure caps. I know im an ******* because i didn't get it vacuumed out.

7. You can use metal file folder clips to remove the stereo.

8. The center console will also need to be removed.

9. If it helps, take a marker to mark what wiring connections go where. Although most of the connections can only go in one place.

10. Go ahead and move your seats as far back as you can to give you as much room as possible to work.

11. Pull some of the passenger carpet out and take some towels and get your floorboard as dry as you can. You don't want stagnant coolant/water sitting in there.

12. Get some good leather/interior treatment products and get your dash/console as pretty as can be. My interior seriously looks factory new now because I bothered to do this.

13. (Only do this if you mess up your heater hoses)If you end up replacing the heater pipes, you'll notice that the replacement pipes you get are not exactly the same as the factory pipes. They still fit but they are a little bent ( I got mine from Atlantic British). It will take a little bit of time for you to figure out the correct position/location the pipes need to be at on the HVAC bracket. I suggest attaching the pipes to the heater core first and loosely bolt on the matrix support bracket. Then you have a little wiggle room from there to figure it out. Use a marker to mark the positioning. All of this can be avoided however if you do not damage the stock heater pipes. When you finally get to remove the core I suggest removing the bracket(HVAC) holding the pipes, not the pipes themselves. They are at a position for best fitment, though if you must remove the pipes, mark there position.

Hopefully this helps somewhat. But long story short what makes the job annoying is that the bracket holding the heater hoses is held by a screw that's head is not facing you. It can be loosened with needle nose pliers however.