[alfa] Re: LS heater core

[Joe Elliott <jee@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Sounds ominous.  I'd recommend you add a bottle of Bars Leaks to the 
coolant sooner than later.

I hate the idea of dumping weird crap into my car's fluid systems, 
but I've been told that Bars Leaks works, so I carried a bottle in my 
trunk since 1999.  A couple weeks ago I had the opportunity to pour 
it into the radiator of an '89 Toyota that was litterally gushing 
coolant from a cracked radiator.  I told the owner "you're 
screwed--I'm certain it's gonna need a new radiator, but I've got 
some crap in my trunk that we can pour in there if you feel lucky." 
I dumped in the goo, then poured in the final gallon of coolant 
(which previously wouldn't stay in the car for more than 90sec at the 
rate it was leaking), and he fired it up and pulled into Pittsburgh 
rush hour traffic.  I followed him, and expected to see his cooling 
system go up in a cloud of steam within 5min.  But I didn't even see 
liquid on the ground behind him.  20 min later we reached the 
destination, and I dared him (somewhat facetiously) to let it idle 
until I saw the fan cycle on and off with my own eyes.  It did. 
Still no leaks.  The car has only been driven a few times since then, 
but still without any trouble.  I'm sold.  (I would be concerned 
about what the goo does to the rest of the cooling system, but I've 
been told that some people actually add it to their coolant 
preemptively, as a water pump lubricant, and their cars still last 
multiple hundreds of thousands of miles.)

Joe
'82 GTV-6


At 12:24 AM +0000 11/9/04, alfa-digest wrote:

> Date: Mon, 8 Nov 2004 15:26:23 -0800 (GMT-08:00)
> From: Cuadra <cuadra@domain.elided>
> Subject: [alfa] LS heater core
>
> On Sunday I was driving in the mountains south of San Francisco. 
> After turning on the climate control I noticed steam/vapor and the 
> unmistakable smell of coolant coming from the lower heating ducts on 
> the passenger side.
>
> I shut off the system and returned home.  Once in my driveway I 
> turned the climate control on & off, then switched over to Econ 
> mode.  I alternated between full heat and A/C.  No more steam/vapor. 
> The area around the ducts was dry.  No coolant leaks on the driveway.
>
> When I checked the expansion tank it was empty (it was full the week 
> before, and the week before that the cooling system was drained & 
> flushed).
>
> Driving around today everything seems fine.  Is my heater core about 
> to go south?  I'm not looking forward to replacing it 'cause it 
> looks like a bitch to get to.
>
> Paul
>
> 95 LS 5-speed (66K miles)
> 83 GTV6 (242K miles)
> 03 Aprilia Falco (4K miles)
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