Astro

I'm an idiot. Where I work, we sell the evaporator core cleaning kits to the new car dealerships. My bosses like to use my truck as a test pig for our products since they have brand new trucks, and mine is a '97 with over 200k.

Anyhow, they gave me one of the evap cleaning kits and asked me to try it out and let them know what I thought. It sat in the back seat for about a month, then a couple fridays ago I was going to go to a drag race event a few hours north of here. I was cleaning & detailing my truck for the trip, and decided I'd try the evap cleaner kit since it only takes about 10 minutes to complete and cleans all the dust and grime out of the airbox and vent tubes.

Well...I can't say if it works or not because I didn't get to try it. You have to drill a 3/8" access hole in the plastic HVAC box between the evaporator and the blower motor for the foaming cleaner to enter the box. It comes with a little plug, and I've heard good things from some of the dealership mechanics I've talked to about it. So anyway, I picked a good spot that wouldn't be seen from the seating position and busted out the cordless drill & uni-bit.

EUREKA! I struck coolant. Apparently I found the lower corner of the heater core with the drill bit. Dang. Oh well.

Anyhow, I bypassed the core with the hoses under the hood and went about my trip.

I bought a new heater core at the parts store the other day, and I figure I'll have some time this weekend to replace it.

So I've searched & read here about replacing the core, and all sounds well.

What I'm wondering is: Those of you who cut the tubes on the core and added rubber hose between the new core and the old lines....or enlarged the hole in the firewall and ran longer 5/8" hose from the steel water tubes to the heater core...how has this held up over time? Any issues?

I know that I can spend 4 hours doing it the right way, no big deal. But being able to knock it out in 2 hours without struggle is appealing. The only draw back I see is should a clamp loosen, break, or a hose burst...bye bye carpet. But then again...I've never had a hose clamp loosen on me, and I always use the the expensive Goodyear Super Hi-Miler hoses on everything I can. I just so happen to have about 20' of 5/8" hanging on the wall ready to be used.

Any feedback/updates from those of you who went the "quicker" route would be appreciated.

Thanks.