KITT87

Well, just found a puddle of coolant on the passengers floor this morning so you know what it’s time to replace. I remember reading a thread on here a bit ago about people getting their heater core rebuilt instead of replaced.

would you guys recommended getting my heater core redone by a local shop or just ordering a new one? If you recommend a new one, what brand would you choose. Thanks.

KITT87

I am asking around for shops who would rebuild it. I would only like to do this once so I will probably go the rebuild route. Of course it breaks the day after I buy Judas Priest tickets!

codyman125

Let this be a lesson, the bird ALWAYS comes first!

I had this happen in my '89, right after I bough new LLOYD'S embroidered floormats... That color does not come out of medium ash grey!

KITT87

oh trust me, it always reminds me that it comes first. It’s like a jealous girlfriend when it comes to my money.

Thankfully my carpet was already kinda crappy. I have a towel down and will be bypassing the heater core to try to prevent more leaks while I look into getting the core rebuilt.

KITT87

Update, I have called most of the shops in my area and the price to get a heater core rebuilt is outside of my price range. I’m sure that they are worth the cost but I just can’t pay it right now. Does anyone have a recommendation for an aftermarket one?

Airwolfe

iTrader: (1)

It's fixing to be nice and warm for most of the year. Bypass it and save up to have the heater core rebuilt before the cold weather comes back this fall.

KITT87

A good idea but I’m concerned about not having a defroster for that long. Could be just paranoia, but if my area got hit with a cold snap or something, would be a bit hard to deal with. The car is my daily driver and a lot of the time I wouldn’t have another car to borrow from my family.

KITT87

I’ll keep it in mind. Seems more trustworthy than what advance, O’Riley’s, and autozone have.

GETGONE

Curious what the cost was to rebuild the core. I picked up a used core off ebay that the seller claimed was holding clean green coolant when it was removed. I haven't swapped it in yet, but weather is going to be warming up here shortly so I can get started on this project.

Aaron R.

I threw my original away when it started leaking. Wish I would have kept it and repaired. This new aluminum one barely gives me enough heat to stay luke-warm in the winter, and I don't even drive in really bad weather. Had to add heated seats to the car to supplement. Had the same issue when I did the one on my truck too.

I'm assuming it has to do with insufficient flow through the new ones, but I have yet to really compare the two.

KITT87

Most places weren’t interested and instead tried to sell me the aftermarket ones. For those that would recore it, the cheapest I heard was ~$200 with the highest being above $300. Like I said, I’m sure it’s worth that price but my family is coming out of some financial issues at the moment and I don’t have that to spend yet. I’m checking with another shop today.

GETGONE

Yeah, that's steep. I've heard most places won't deal with recoring heater cores. It's not worth their time or money. I paid just shy of $32 shipped for the used OEM heater core from EBay. I hope it's good once I go to all the trouble of installing it!

KITT87

I’m planning on stopping by a yard on Monday to check out a core they have, and I also posted an ad over in parts wanted. I’m gonna keep checking with shops in the meantime and if all else fails I’ll pick up an aluminum one. Hope yours is good!!

ZR1Z06Z28

I'm a little late to this post, but wanted to share. Had the dreaded coolant-flooded floorboard last May in my '86 Z. While the reviews on here were mixed about the available new cores, I decided on the Spectra and was going to order it from Rock Auto. On a whim, I looked up the same part number on Amazon and got it for under $30 delivered to my door the next day. It wasn't really any harder to install the Spectra than it was to get the original GM unit out (it was a bitc$# to get out). There's just very little room to get anything behind/under the dash. But, it went in fine and I didn't have any leaks or problems at all.

Two other good things came from this failed heater core. 1. I thoroughly flushed the cooling system and put upgraded coolant in, which hadn't been done for 20+ years. 2. My already stained gray carpet got replaced with a new black carpet and the car looks 100% nicer inside.

Hope you can get some good news out of this bad news situation.

GETGONE

The problem I've read with the spectra units is the moveable tubes. They're not solid soldered like the OEM core so they are a point of failure. I had to replace a heater core in my 98 Sonoma and used a Spectra unit and it was fine and had the moveable tubes. I didn't care too much about that being original or not, I needed it functional, although it was a major pain to change since you had to rip the entire dash out and the "correct" way was to also remove the HVAC box in the engine compartment as one of the inner covers had a stud with a nut going THROUGH the firewall that couldn't be accessed without removing it or drilling an access hole. Hoping the Camaro isn't the same way.

KITT87

How well would you say the aluminum core produces heat compared to the original one? I think I’m going to pick up a used brass core. I had some injectors and an exhaust hanger die on me so I’m gonna need to take care of those first.