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I have some 3/4 hose and a pump so will circulate it for the day and see what happens. Im all about finding a simpler hack for this one if its possible. My indy was adamant it wouldn't work, but he said the same about rebuilding the air compressor and that has worked great for 2yrs since I rebuilt it with a $20 kit.
@jagman thanks for this! I have lots of questions for you! There is such little good info online about this. I have a 997 and am use to having tons of good DIY guides from the forums. I will certainly make one on this if I make it through alive
1. Do you just need to remove the center console side panel and glove box?
2. Ive seen a post for the Range Rover Sport that said you need to cut the metal dashboard frame to slide the core out, then try to bolt it back together somehow. Is this correct? Is the only way around this taking the entire dashboard off?
3. Can you explain more about how you cut the pipes and what model core you used. My indy told me if you buy the LR core for ~$500 you can disconnect the pipes and dont need to cut anything. But if you get the OEMs for ~$150 you need to cut the pipes.
Did you take any pics while you were in there. Im still trying to get a lay of the land to build my confidence before I dig into the project. This is the only project on the LR that seems daunting. Rebuilding the air compressor was a pain in the ***, but at least there were a ton of posts on it.
1. I would recommend referencing the workshop manual available online for free (with lots of ads) for the procedure to gain access. To get access to just the side, you still need to pull a lot of trim. I did not end up pulling the entire center support (which requires pulling the entire center console). Once you get enough of the passenger side trim removed, and in sufficiently warm temperatures, you can bend back the side of the forward center console support to remove the core. That said, it is in the way and in retrospect I'd recommend just pulling the whole thing as the manual recommends. I later ended up doing this to get access to the stepper motors. If you're going in there, just pull it all for better access, it's not that much harder but it does involve a lot of panels, fasteners, and clips so you have to be methodical.
2. I didn't cut anything destructively beyond the heater core inlet and outlet pipes. With the one piece pipes, I don't think you can remove the core without (a) cutting the pipes (b) significantly bending them to the point of it being risky to be able to re-align them or (c) removing the entire dash.
3. I cut the pipes in place with a hacksaw, and then shortened the removed pieces further off the truck to make a section for the heater hose to be installed. I used a Nissens core for about $120 I think. My original (I assume) pipes did not have the intermediate disconnects so a replacement core with multi-section pipes would not have helped.
Holy ****. @DakotaTravler you win the prize!! I got heat. Thanks so much!
I wouldn't call it a 100% fix, but its a 75% improvement. When I'm on the gas its maybe 90% of the passenger side temp. When idling its maybe 60%. I thought it was a fail when I first started it back up. But after driving around for a bit at high RPM it started building temp.
Here is what I did:
1. Unscrewed the 4 6mm bolts on engine cover to give yourself some more room. Put the oil cap back so nothing gets in there.
2. Pull the two heater core hoses off. Press in the clips and twist back and forth a bit. They will eventually come off.
3. Rig up 2x 3/4 "ID plastic hoses with a hose clamps at one end to attach it firmly to the heater core (it will leak and fall off without these). On the other end I rigged up standard hose connectors. I then attached these to 2 10' garden hoses.
4. Hook this up to a harbor freight pump. Align so the pump outflow goes to the heater core outflow, ie backflush it. The outflow is the pipe closer to the driver side.
5. I picked up 1 gallon of Boiler Treat citric acid descaler as well as 3lbs of granular Citric acid. I poured that in a bucket and had both inflow and outflow hose ends bungeed so they wouldn't spray all over the place.
6. I did 3 flushes at about 1.5hr per flush, for a total of 4-5hrs. I started with the Boiler Treat then did two flushes with the hot water and citric acid brew. I flipped the inflow and outflow every time I changed the flush fluid.
7. I was hoping it would be more satisfying and turn brown so you know its working. No joy. It stays clear but I did see rust particles in the bottom of the bucket. There were more fine particles in the earlier flush and larger bits in the later flushes. Still, not a lot. I would also notice some particles come out every time I switched the flow, so that seemed to dislodge some junk.
8. I then hooked up the hose to the inflow and ran fresh water through the system for another 5 mins, flipping the inflow and outflow every bucket. I saw a couple more larger bits come out each time I did this. I think if you had one of those heater core attachments that you can hook into an air compressor it would really help.
9. I blew out any remaining water from the core and then tried to prefill it with 50/50 coolant. That wasn't super successful as the angle was wrong. I hooked everything back up and degreased the engine while I was in there.
10. After starting the car I didnt feel any difference but once it was warmed up I floored it a couple times and the heat really started to build nicely on the driver side.
Side note: Is there a specific bleed procedure for the expansion tank, or does it self bleed?
Im thinking another flush or using compressor air would get it back 100%. But this is good enough for the next trip up to Tahoe.
12-26-2019, 10:32 PM
