Hey there,
If you get under your car, near the bottom of the engine bay back by the firewall you will see two hoses that pass through there into the passenger compartment. There are ring clamps on both, which are a pain to get off without a ring clamp compressor, but a pair of rugged pliers will do the trick. You will need to drain the coolant first, or else it will all pour out the hoses at you when you remove them. After the hoses are off there are two options, you can either follow the hoses back to the engine and cap off the heater core outlets (this probably being the harder route) or you can buy the right size elbow joint and just install it in place of the heater core, using new clamps or the old ones. You should be able to make a joint for it fairly easily out of either plastic piping, which would be fine or some sort of metal, as long as it will hold 10-15 PSI. If I'm not mistaken the heater core inlets are 1/2 inch.
I hope this helps! I looked for a picture but can;t find one right now, but if anything is unclear just let me know and I'll do my best to help.
This would be a fairly simple job in a garage, and I don't see it taking more than a half hour with an honest mechanic. Let me know what you come up with!
Feb 15, 2010 at 4:21 AM
