I've never seen one fail.....and never seen one loose tension, but have seen lots of rubber hose fail, right at the clamp

 

That is pure laziness. If you are that far, spend an extra 15 minutes and pull it all out. My goodness, there are 4 nuts and 2 a/c lines from the point you are doing that job at. I bet your evap core will need to be replaced in 2 months.

 

That is a lawsuit waiting to happen. Drilling holes in people's dashes?

 

Well I've pulled them before and its a bit more than 15min from this point, plus the draining of recovery of the AC. You DID recover your AC didn't you? You didn't vent it to atmosphere did you?

The time from this point is about another 30min, plus another 30min for reassembly so thats an hour, plus the time required to re-charge AC is about an hour. So it saves maybe 2 hours total or if you cann't recharge your own system then an hour of your time plus the cost of a recovery and recharge. Plus your time driving it to the shop for a recovery and then back again for a re-charge.

If you can get the swivel fittings thats great. I could not so this was my solution and so far its been fine. It was done back in Jan. and so far the evap has held up.

The truck has 335,000kms on it so I doubt its still got the original evap or that heater core I pulled was original.

 

Well I see your point, but I was changing the evap anyways so had no choice. If your a/c is already evacuated it is about 15 more minutes of work I guess.

 

Well, I did this yesterday. I was quite a "fun" job. I ended up buying 8 feet of heater hose to replace oll the oricingal on this 1996. I pulled the old metal tubes and ran the hose thru the firewall right to the heater core.
Before I put the hoses ont he cut off tubes of the new core, I put some rubber cement on them.
Everything works great.

 

Glad to hear it. Mine is still working good with no leaks.

 

Done and done.. took me under 3 hrs..(hadnt taken dash off b4)

 

So cLAYH, How is the heater core mod working after a few years of use?

 

Anyone?

 

I replaced my heater core this spring using cLAYH's method.
Saved a lot of time not having to remove the HVAC box. I still rolled the dash back onto the seat.
So far no problems for me. If cLAYH did have a problem I am sure he would have posted so on this thread.
You could always PM him.
Stan

 

If you're worried about clamps use T Bolt clamps. They use nylock nuts and are made of stainless steel. The truck will rust away but the clamps will still be there and tight.

http://www.fastenal.com/web/search/p...N-gj4z0d&Nty=0

 

Am doing my heater core thanks to this thread. Local Dodge dealer quoted me $600+ to do it. I said **** that. Another mechanic told me it would take him more than $100 at $60/hour. Told him to take a hike too. I'm doing it myself- got one with the swivel fittings. Ended up taking the swivel fittings apart with a small vise grip and putting them back together IN the truck with a monkey wrench. I'll have 2 hours in the job by the time I'm done, and half of the time was spent looking for tools. This is so easy to do a dummy could do it, especially with the new swivel heaters. $65 and two hours and I have heat again. No rubber hoses going under the dash either!!! Thanks!

 

Sold the truck to my dad a few years ago. Still has it. Still working fine with no leaks.

 

BTW the clamps are easily visible and servicable by dropping the glove box. Its not like they are buried and the dash has to come off again to tighten them.