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My son has a 2000 Cavalier heater core has a small leak that does not leak into the car it leaks at or near the fire wall. The hoses are not leaking. What I have noticed is that when he drove it to his house he had it in his garage and it had been off for at least 35-45 minutes before I showed up at his house. There we no puddles of coolant on the floor. I opened the reservior cap the coolant was close to full and pretty warm still. I started to look for obvious things such as the water pump, hoses and the general stuff. I got my floor jack from the back of my truck and rolled the jack under the car and then I saw a small puddle. I originally thought it was rain water from my jack. I looked under the car and there was a small stream that came down near the firewall on the passenger side. The stream hits the frame stuff and then the floor. So I checked the heater hoses and they were fine at the firewall and towards the front of the car as well. A couple of interesting things were that he did not use the heat or AC that day, it was not running hot as well. I checked the coolant that was dripping from the frame and it was very cool, like it had not gone through the same path as the other coolant. I can tell you that the coolant in the resiviour was stll very warm. He drove it to work and back the next day, no coolant loss but still had the puddle after it had been sitting a while. Today (Friday) he dropped it off at a local garage and they called him and said what I told him that he has a small leak in the heater core. They wanted $600 plus to replace the core because of all the labor of getting the dash out. He told them not to do it, mostly because he didn’t want to put that much money into the car and partly because he knows that I would do it. My questions are this, I have some problems with my body from post Cancer surgery and the other stuff , chemo and radiation. So some days I have a hard enough time just functioning. I wanted to know if anyone had any quick tips on getting the core out or the dash apart? Secondly if that is going to be that big of a job with my health I have to plan it out when I can take a full day or more with the dash, would any of the radiator stop leak stuff work on a heater core, or do you think that flushing it may work, just thinking that maybe it’s clogged enough that it was causing the leak. By the way he did have the garage bypass the heater core today just to stop loosing coolant, I also told him to tell them not to hack up the hoses or the heater core tubes. Any tips would be appreciated. And I have watched your video several times flushing the jeep core and as always great video. I have a lot of respect for you, Thanks, Frank
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First of all..It seems strange to me that if it was leaving huge puddles on the ground you would be needing to keep topping up the coolant.
Is it dripping since the core was bypassed? I’m thinking that maybe it’s condensate (water) dripping from the air conditioning.
Here is the procedure. seems like a big PIA.
http://www.justanswer.com/chevy/1ihwd-2000-chevy-cavalier-heater-core-bad-trying.html
Hey college man, I’ve tried on several different occasions with various “justanswer” links you’ve put up and when I paste them into my browser I always get the message displayed here below. any thoughts?
404 – Oops! Seems you accessed an invalid linkI found you a six part YouTube video on how to pull the dash out of a 2000 Cavalier. Yikes ! It’s over here and it ain’t pretty.
http://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=heater+core+replacement+chevy+cavalier&oq=heater+core+replacement+chevy+c&gs_l=youtube.1.0.33i21l2.77401.79534.0.83812.2.2.0.0.0.0.101.200.1j1.2.0…0.0…1ac.1.11.youtube.4WDjN5Y6iT0Before dismantling the dash I have a suggestion that might be worth a shot.
I don’t recommend stop-leak like products for any reason. At best, I find they may offer a temporary fix and I prefer to fix the source of the leaks. So here’s what I was thinking you could try.
If you can isolate this leak to a crack in an inlet tube or outlet, I believe those pieces are actually made of plastic. I would try and expose the inlet or outlet as best you can without taking a Sawzall to the firewall (JK), and either try and seal the leak with something like Q-Bond plastic adhesive and then slip the hose over the repair and clamp it beyond the crack.
Or, get a piece of plastic tube like out of ABS plastic or PVC that would fit snuggly over the existing inlet or outlet tube. First try and seal the leak with that glue and then glue the piping sleeve on using the Q-Bond glue. Let it harden for 24 hours or so before reconnecting the hoses to the new extension(s). I say use plastic tube since I haven’t actually tried QB with rubber tubing. Then check it for leaks. While it might sound a bit Rube Goldberg-esque, it might keep you out of the Remove the Dash woods.
If you get this lash-up to hold, at that point I’d back flush the heater core and probably the whole cooling system. You can buy Prestone cooling system flush kits at parts stores. They cost less than 10 bucks each. A can of cooling sys. flush and a couple of gallons of anti-freeze and hopefully your son is back to happy motoring without leaks.
Sparks[quote=”sunset” post=63583]Hey college man, I’ve tried on several different occasions with various “justanswer” links you’ve put up and when I paste them into my browser I always get the message displayed here below. any thoughts?
404 – Oops! Seems you accessed an invalid link[/quote]I don’t know.I just clicked on it and it worked. let me
know when you get it again. we will compare.Nobody has ever
said anything about the error?heater core removal on GM cars is no joke. trying to get the core out without removing the dash will most like result in broken things, like blend doors and such.
i suspect the reason the leak is coming from where you say it is, is because the coolant is leaking from the heater core into the evaporator box, and then dripping down where the AC condensation drips.
The labor is intensive. On a 2000 cavalier, if you don’t need the heater, and you cant afford to pay a pro, and you have physical problems, I would just leave it bypassed.
If you decide to take it on yourself, here are a few tips for the older GM cars:
1. Dont try to sneak out the heater core without removing the whole dash. Everything under there is plastic, and is very brittle with age and you will likely break important stuff.
2. Only buy the heater core from the dealer to avoid potential problems. Many of the aftermarket heater cores have flexible aluminum pipes that can kink and bind during installation and potentially crack. If you can find a cheaper part than the dealer, that has rigid heater tubes, that will work too.
3. Most important take your time, and take breaks, when you get frustrated. Dont force anything to come out, because it will probably break, because of its brittleness.
[quote=”sunset” post=63680]OK will do.[/quote]
I spoke to soon.I just got some error for the just answer site.
There website or server must be having problems. So its not
just you. 😉Thank you everyone for helping out with this one. I know I took one out of my 74 Z-28 back then I would work on anything. I had a lot of patience and it didn’t bother me if it took a few days.
My son is really patient as well. Real nice person. Very smart, he has his masters degree in Chemical Engineering, 7 years of school, when he has the time to go back to college part time he is 6-12 months away from his PHD. So he is very book smart not as hands on as me. His decision not to put $600 into the car was not so much that he does not have the cash to do it but more from the standpoint of being financially practical with a car that old. He had been thinking about getting a new car within the next 4-6 months. He originally bought the Caviler in 04 with 38K on the odometer for around $3800. Funny thing he didn’t like the 3 year loan at 6% so he paid it off in less than a year.
The problem with taking the dash out is that I have a feeling that it is going to take me more than a few days and this is his only means of going to work and I have a job that I am very busy at so that was why I was looking for any short cuts like the guy that did the video of cutting the lower mounting bracket on the Taurus.
Sorry for half the life story. I really wanted to update you on what has been done as a temporary fix and again thank all of you for your help. I do all the work on my vehicles and I am not used to having to give up. It may take me longer with my health but giving up is not usually an option.
As I had said in the original posting he dropped it off at a garage that a co-worker suggested. That was Thursday night. They didn’t have it ready until this morning. I took him to the garage and they said they had bypassed the heater core and ran up to normal temperature to see if it leaked at all either the bypass or the head gasket. Perfect no leaking at all. Pretty interesting the way they bypassed the heater core. They didn’t do it at the firewall. They by passed it back at one side of the thermostat and one side going into the engine block just following the 2 heater hoses back and they disconnected the hoses at the front of the engine and just disconnected the hoses there and tied them back with tie wraps. Then they just put a short heater hose to each side so the coolant is just bypassing the heater core. This will make it easier for me to work on in the next couple of weeks. If anyone is interested in seeing the bypass job just let me know he will be at my house for fathers day tomorrow and I can take a couple of pictures and post them on here.
Thanks again happy Fathers day to all you great Dads out there.
Frank
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