[61 Tin Man]

So, this is my first question on the board.

Is replacing the heater core on this car going to be as bad as it looks?

[61catalinaguy]

Easy job.

[Steve Barcak]

I would say it is more involved if your car has fact a/c

[Stuart]

Do you have the factory shop manuals? There's one just for heating and a/c systems that spells it out pretty well. If you don't I can scan the pages and send them to you.

If it's a non-a/c car, there are two different heaters - the direct-aire, and the circle-aire. The circle-aire dash control has three pushbuttons at the top and two vertical sliders underneath; the direct-aire has one horizontal slider on top and three vertical sliders underneath.

The shroud on the firewall is probably the trickiest part - it's a tight fit to get it out from behind the inner wheel well, but it can be done if you wiggle it around enough.

[61 Tin Man]

Originally Posted by 61catalinaguy

Easy job.

"Easy", meaning?????

No AC, Have you actually done it?

[61catalinaguy]

I have replaced heater cores and recored radiators back in the day and have replaced heater cores on these vehicles with a/c and without a/c. I guess it depends on how you look at it. It may not be easy to some people but i thought they were easy. But then i worked in the auto repair business and specialized in the heating/cooling area.

[61 Tin Man]

I guess what I want to know is, Do I have to remove the inner fender?

[Stuart]

Originally Posted by 61 Tin Man

I guess what I want to know is, Do I have to remove the inner fender?

Assuming the car doesn't have in-dash air conditioning, no. It is a tight fit getting the shroud off the firewall, but you can get it out without removing the inner fender.

[TheMonkey]

Stuart-

What's the difference between the 2 non-AC cores? Mine is direct-aire. The tubes stick straight out. Pics from one on eBay shows lower tube is angled upward. Can you see if your circle-aire is angled on one of the core tubes?

I'm wondering if the pic from eBay is wrong. If yours is angled upward then I might assume the rock auto ones are for direct aire.

Sellers distinguish non-AC but not direct/circle....

Thx

From expired eBay listing:


From rock auto:

[pfilean]

Shop heat/vent/AC manual pictures Circ-L-Aire which does not have A/C as having the straight out parallel tubes. If it was with A/C then the tubes are not parallel. And interestingly enough it shows the same for the Direct-Aire system. I never noticed before that either heater could come with A/C. So apparently if you don't have A/C then you get the parallel tubes regardless of which heater you have.

And the replacement procedure wants you to take out the glove box to get at the controls on the top of the heater core case. They tell you to do that after you are told to remove the six nuts holding the air inlet duct. So I think those must be the six in the engine compartment and then when you move into the passenger compartment the first thing is to remove the glove box. It's the passenger side that might be a problem but if you don't mind working standing on your head it may not be any big deal. Not that I want the job.

[TheMonkey]

i think i found a clue. on page 2-16 of HVAC manual it shows a picture of core from an AC car and it shows the canted intake tube. so i think you are right that cores only distinguish from AC and non-AC.

i'm going to try one of the straight ones for replacement - from what i can tell, both versions of non-AC heater cores are the same.

[Stuart]

The ones I've replaced on non-a/c cars had the outlets parallel, like the second photo above. I've only worked on cars with the Circ-L-Aire heater, but from what I can tell in the shop manual the Direct-Aire heater core was the same shape.

On page 1-17 of the HVAC manual there are views of the Circ-L-Aire both with and without a/c, and the pics of the Direct-Aire with and without are on pages 2-15 and 2-16. In both cases the outlets are parallel on non-a/c cars and angled on a/c cars.

[TheMonkey]

I know original poster was a very long time ago, but for the benefit of anyone else, core removal is straight forward. The duct in the engine compartment does not even need to come out, although it needs to be unfastened. Mine was originally sealed with tack strip so it just stayed in place. No worries about wheel well.

I should have put in a new one when I had the assembly out a few years ago.