[vegacharger]

Well, a poke in the eye with a sharp stick is ALMOST as annoying and painful as pulling the 78 280z leaky freakin' heater core. Anyone who has done this will know the agony when reading and trying to carry out this little ditty of advice from the FSA.
"remove two screws retaining heater **** to heater **** bracket, and remove heater ****"...okay, bullshit.
If these are the two screws I think they are...you know, the ones about 1.5 inches from the top of the underneath of the dash..POINTING UP. Well, stubby philips didn't fit, and my nice 90degree phillips screwdriver fit, but thanks to Mr. Yoshoshita programming the screwdriver machine to torque the screws to 5000 ft. lbs....there goes the screw...stripped....Well, words flew...as well as 8mm sockets, and I managed to unbolt other bolts and massacre the heater hoses with razor blades to get everything loose and the heater core came out.
Anyone know the best place to get the heater core and the hoses? Can normal heater hose manage the curves without kinking? And yes, I'm ditching those P.O.S. stock clamps...you know the ones that no matter how loose you unscrew them, they still can't be moved? Ya, those. Anyway, maybe it's all the blood that ended up in the head...but that sucked....and now I have to put all the crap back together.....but that blower was a piece of cake to take out.
chris

 

[johnb510]

You can use 5/8" heater hose, but the close angles will cause it to kink. What I did was to buy 5/8" silicone hose from napa (you can use regular heater hose) and some 90 deg. copper "ell's" from the hardware store. The "ell's" were 1/2" in dia. Those made the bends in the hose.
Now for the hose clamps... I bought mine from MSCdirect (one of those industrial supply houses). They are solid banded on the inside... the best hose clamps I found and cheap too! Some one on this site said that Advance Auto has the solid worm gear clamps, WRONG! They are only solid part of the way... The solid clamps will not damage the hose like a normal worm gear clamp will. Go to
www.mscdirect.com
search for page 4520
Tridon shielded worm drive clamps
get the #10 size. They are .66 each for the 613 series and .99 ea for the 615 series. I bought the 613 clamps.

 

[WillieBoy240Z]

You crack me up, Vegacharger! Last I checked, my heater core was working okay. But if I experience problems, reckon I will just park the Z until Spring!

 

[vegacharger]

I just ordered those hoseclamps....it looks like victoria british has a decent price on the hoses, so I will probablly go through them just to avoid the kinkage. Sounds like 100 bucks is the going rate for a new heater core....anyone know of cheaper places?
chris

 

[johnb510]

Check a radiator shop

Let your fingers do the walking thru the yellow pages... check out some radiator repair shops, they may have what you need or can fix what you have.

 

[jcool78 2plus2]

Re: Things I hate...

Regular heater hoses won't work because they will kink when they are bent to fit. Some parts stores will have the pre-bent hoses from other apps. that may be adapted fit. Check the archives for more info. Also, Gates has a line of heater hose that has a coil of wire inside to prevent kinking, but good luck trying to find it.

More bad news is that the heater control valve also has a tendency to leak around the shaft.

I got some clamps by Tridon but I don't think they are that great. They can't be "ganged" to even out the tension or opened up to slip around existing apps. w/o removing the hoses and they fall apart if you try to open them to do so.

 

[johnb510]

Re: Things I hate...

Are you using the fully shielded ones? Never had a problem with them sealing, falling apart, ect. Rule of thumb... If the clamp needs to be replaced, time to replace the hose too. Thus no problem trying to open them up so you won't have to remove the hose.

 

[mark78z]

Re: Things I hate...

Your complaints of changing the heater core are great and I can feel your pain as I had to take mine out 9 months ago. A radiator shop repaired mine and said that they are fairly indistructable. Replace the valve at the same time since they do tend to leak as soon as you replace the core and put everything back together. I was able to get hoses with the same bends at a parts house by comparing the old ones to new hoses for other applications. Good luck.