Comments | daveb: "Hey, Rocky! Watch me pull a heater-core out of a car the size of a @*&!ing shoebox!"

daveb

"Hey, Rocky! Watch me pull a heater-core out of a car the size of a @*&!ing shoebox!"

Jun 13, 2004 22:12

Four years ago I pulled the engine out of my truck and replaced it with an entirely different engine (from a straight-six to a V-8). I can honestly say that was a damn-sight easier than it has been to get to the heater core in the Escort ( Read more... )

Comments 8

davmoo June 14 2004, 04:06:38 UTC

When I had my T-bird, it developed a leak in the heater core. In the end I decided it was less infuriating to just bypass the heater core with another piece of hose and use a 12 volt heater inside the car.

daveb June 14 2004, 04:10:38 UTC

Believe me, if this happens again that's exactly what I'm doing!

davmoo June 14 2004, 06:12:38 UTC

I'm surprised that in all the history of cars, something better for heater design has not come up. It cannot possibly be a Really Good Thing that a liquid with a temperature of at least 160 degrees is being brought in to the interior of the vehicle.

As for your airbags, there was a situation in Kentucky some years ago where a girl was driving such that the thumbs on both hands were over the airbag on the steering wheel. She was in an accident, the airbag deployed, and it literally blew her thumbs off. This is one of the reasons I prefer older vehicles without airbags. Were I to get a vehicle with airbags, there is a very good possibility that I would disable and remove the airbag as soon as I got it home. I believe in automotive safety and all that, but I do not like the idea of explosives being in the passenger compartment (and what you read about how airbags work (chemical mixture, etc) is correct).

daveb June 14 2004, 07:25:25 UTC

Several children I've read about were decapitated by the airbags in a vehicle. That, however, is more the fault of the parent that put their kid in the front seat to begin with. With or without airbags, kids belong in the back seat.

And I agree about the heaters. While it's very resourceful and all to use the engine coolant, it's also setting people up for exactly what I'm going through right now. God forbid I should have to pay a dealership to replace the thing! An electric heater might draw more juice from the electrical system, but I doubt it would be very significant. A heat pump might work well down here, but we don't get into sub-zero temperatures in the winter (often) like up there.

Thread 6

stainsteelrat June 14 2004, 15:12:04 UTC

I feel your pain. Anything which involves dismantling the console seems to be a total nightmare.

Airbags are also a right pain. I remember a guy telling me that Fiat airbags (on one particular model) could only be removed by a specialist technician (if you went to the Dealer). The total cost being around US$6000 per airbag. Therefore they were finding that if the car had a driver and passenger airbag that blew in an accident, it could write the car off from an insurance perspective.

daveb June 15 2004, 17:14:33 UTC

On my truck or any other full-sized vehicle it's usually easier, but on these compact cars it's like microsurgery. I keep thinking about the cars I saw in the UK when I was there and how small some of those were! Those must be awful to work on.

$6000 per airbag??? That's insane! (although it makes me want to become a Fiat mechanic!)