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leak in heater

My 97 9000 Aero has, I think, developed a leak in or near the heater core. Two major symptoms bring me to this conclusion. First, I can smell anti-freeze in the car when the heat is turned on. No such smell in the summertime. Second, when I come back to the car after it has been operated then parked for a while, I find a film on the windshield right above the defroster outlet on the front dashboard. It does not appear while I'm driving, just after the car has been sitting without the engine running for a while. I can get it to dissipate just with the blower, but it takes a while. So I'm guessing that I have either a leaking hose or heater core and nothing is easy to get to. One other item that I could fix at the same time would be a squeaky blower motor, probably the bearing. What do you think I should plan on replacing to take care of everything? Are those symptoms indicative of a faulty core? or just a hose? I buy my parts online and would like to have everything on hand before I start the job.

Thanks.

Michael

Reply to
mdb
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You can wait for the symptom to worsen to make sure. It appears to be the heater core. Replacing it is not too difficult. Many write-ups are available. I had one experience two years ago I think I removed the blower motor three times in the course of a week and a half to diagnose a bad blower motor. I became so good at it I pulled and intalled the blower motor and housing in half an hour the third time. The first time took 2 hours. The second 45 minutes. The blower motor housing is locked in place on the firewall by two plastic snap locks. For first timers it may be frustrating to remove it.

Practice makes perfection.

Reply to
yaofeng

Can you get to the heater without having to remove all the insides of the car (dashboard) ?

:-) Charles

Reply to
Charles C.

all the insides of

It is not done from the inside. The blower motor housing is removed from the aquarium behind the false bulkhead. And no. You have to remove the entire torpedo to remove the blower motor. At least if there is a way to remove the blower motor only without touching the housing I don't know how.

Reply to
yaofeng

In message , yaofeng writes

Blower motor and core instructions found here - I've done it once on my old 9000 - not easy (swearing at the right intervals helps).

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If you are going to replace the core then you might as well replace the blower motor at the same time as they have a finite life (mine went at around 130k miles).

Cheers,

Andy

Reply to
Andrew Sinclair

mdb wrote: One other item that I could fix at the same time

Hi Michael, I've got a '96 Aero & just went through the whole heater matrix replacement thing a couple of weeks ago. The scrapes and bruises have just about healed ;) As others have said, it's not obvious, so pay attention to the various write-ups and you should be fine. Took me 3 hours, but reckon I could do it in under a hour now I know what to expect.

The squeaking by the way.. are you sure it's not the little air temp sensor fan behind the plastic grille on your dash?? These are notorious for squeaking / chirping, but can be easily cleaned / oiled :)

Reply to
Nasty Bob

No, I'm not sure that the problem is in the blower. How do I locate/access that air temp sensor fan? Behind one of the directional plastic grills? or up on top of the dash, just below the windshield? This could be one of those Eureka! moments. Thanks.

Reply to
mdb

It's in the dash, straight in front of you, underneath the seat heater switches.

It looks like this:

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No, I'm not sure that the problem is in the blower. How do I locate/access

Reply to
Nasty Bob

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