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Thread: DIY: Heater core replacement

  1. #81
    Besides most of those bolts are just extra weight and not really needed right?


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  2. #82
    Business Up Front Johnny Mullet's Avatar
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    I had 5 hours in this job total. Book time is almost 7 hours. Most shops are around $100 per hour plus parts so this would have cost her almost $1000.00 to repair. I charged her $300 in labor to do the job. I would totally do it again! It was time consuming, but not a hard job at all.

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  4. #83
    Senior Member Cobrajet's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by Johnny Mullet View Post
    I had 5 hours in this job total. Book time is almost 7 hours. Most shops are around $100 per hour plus parts so this would have cost her almost $1000.00 to repair. I charged her $300 in labor to do the job. I would totally do it again! It was time consuming, but not a hard job at all.
    They really are a lot like Metros, aren't they!

    I did a heater core in my ex-girlfriend's '99 3/5, and I suspect if I were to do the heater core in my '15 Mirage it would be about the same amount of work. Tedious, but not difficult.

  5. #84
    Member pawpaw's Avatar
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    Replaced the heater core in my 2014 12/27/2020

    I found the part on Amazon a little cheaper than Rock Auto (50 ish with free shipping from Pit Stop Auto, same manufacturer as the cheaper Rock Auto part)

    Many, many thanks to Daox for the writeup. I followed the general procedure and it "generally" worked! The writeup gave me the courage to attempt this job.

    It took me most of the day Sunday and, I must admit, as I was disconnecting endless connectors and looking at the chaos inside my car I had a bit of time wishing I had never started this job and wondering if I was going to ruin my car. I would recommend avoiding this job unless you have some mechanical aptitude and experience. There are a lot of opportunities to break/cut cables, mess up trim, forget to connect things, and generally cause mayhem. There are also plenty of ways to cause cosmetic damage. Fortunately, one of the reasons I drive a Mirage is to help free myself from getting upset about a scratch here or there.

    Maybe it is because I have an ES but I had a few more cables to disconnect.

    The center trim on my car had a connector and what looked like a magnetic sensor for the emergency brake lever that needed removing. It also had a sneaky little cable and connector to some kind of holder for the keyless key thingy. This is hidden so I was saved by long experience that "pulling harder" is often a bad idea.

    The two pieces of trim on the steering column near the wheel needed removing so I could disconnect several cables before dropping the column.

    There was a bluetooth module in the middle with some connections that I ended up removing before dropping the big bar.

    There were some cable connections to a mystery box somewhat hidden on the passenger side inside the panel that needed disconnecting before the panel could come out.

    The steering column had four screws(bolts actually), two obvious in front and two a little more hidden further back. On my car a piece of trim where the column goes through the firewall popped off when I dropped the column. A plastic thingy to hold this trim down went flying so I guess the lesson is don't forget to loosen this before dropping the column.

    I scratched my head for a while about how best to drop the big bar. The fuse box side has about a million connections. In the end I followed the strategy of disconnecting cables where they left the bar and would prevent it from dropping but leaving the big trunk on the bar generally alone (disconnected front cables from fuse/junction box and other cables that would pull tight when bar was moved but left box and bracket attached to bar). In the end the passenger side of the bar could drop and move quite a bit without breaking cables and the driver side could move just enough. Pretty scary bit. In addition to the four bolts on the sides there were two screws on the driver side and a strut thingy in the middle (bolt, two screws, nut) to remove before the bar could drop.

    When I was putting the big instrument panel back in I struggled with the %%$^^ A pillar trim for a while before I realized that the plastic strap thingys they hang from have an end that can be twisted and disconnected (the end that goes into a slot in the trim) allowing the trim pieces to be removed. This made it a lot easier even if they were a little fiddly for me to reattach.

    Kudos to the Mitsubishi engineers. Even though there are countless cables and connections they did a good job laying them out so that there were few opportunities to plug things into the wrong spot and most of the clips were close to where they needed to connect and not close to any other connection spots. This helped immensely.

    In the end everything seems to work but I got a "service engine soon" light. The funny thing is that after the nightmare inside the car I had forgot to re-connect the connector that goes to the airbox stuff in the engine compartment. I cleared those codes and fingers crossed I think I might have survived this experience with good heat coming from my vents and maybe an extra $1000 in my pocket!
    Last edited by pawpaw; 12-31-2020 at 02:33 PM.

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  7. #85
    Moderator Eggman's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by pawpaw View Post
    I found the part on Amazon a little cheaper than Rock Auto (50 ish with free shipping from Pit Stop Auto, same manufacturer as the cheaper Rock Auto part)

    Many, many thanks to Daox for the writeup. I followed the general procedure and it "generally" worked! The writeup gave me the courage to attempt this job.

    ...

    In the end everything seems to work but I got a "service engine soon" light. The funny thing is that after the nightmare inside the car I had forgot to re-connect the connector that goes to the airbox stuff in the engine compartment. I cleared those codes and fingers crossed I think I might have survived this experience with good heat coming from my vents and maybe an extra $1000 in my pocket!
    Nice write-up pawpaw - thanks for posting this. Any chance you took pictures along the way? Also, did you disconnect your battery for this job?

        __________________________________________

        click to view fuel log View my fuel log 2015 Mirage ES 1.2 manual: 49.6 mpg (US) ... 21.1 km/L ... 4.7 L/100 km ... 59.5 mpg (Imp)


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    As far as I have found out, only one product claims it can rid the coolant system of silicate gel!

    It is called Cummins Fleetguard Restore (not to be confused with Restore-plus which is something different!).


    The manufacture claims:

    "Restore is an alkaline-based chelating cleaner particularly effective in removing silicate gel.
    It is also effective in removing oil contamination and solder bloom"


    If I were in the States where they sell it, it would be the first thing tried, although it only comes in large containers.




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    Last edited by foama; 12-28-2020 at 10:49 AM.

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  10. #87
    Senior Member Cobrajet's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by foama View Post
    As far as I have found out, only one product claims it can rid the coolant system of silicate gel!

    It is called Cummins Fleetguard Restore (not to be confused with Restore-plus which is something different!).


    The manufacture claims:

    "Restore is an alkaline-based chelating cleaner particularly effective in removing silicate gel.
    It is also effective in removing oil contamination and solder bloom"


    If I were in the States where they sell it, it would be the first thing tried, although it only comes in large containers.




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    Many thanks for posting this, as I had no idea this product existed. I will give this a go in the spring.

  11. #88
    Member pawpaw's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by Eggman View Post
    Nice write-up pawpaw - thanks for posting this. Any chance you took pictures along the way? Also, did you disconnect your battery for this job?
    I disconnected the battery as the first step. Actually, I removed it completely and replaced it with a new AGM battery from Rock Auto after the job. I'm not sure if the AGM will last longer or anything but I like that they don't seem to create the white corrosion mess.

    I posted some random pictures in a heater core replacement album on this site. They were embarrasingly useless and I forgot to take a picture at the height of destruction. That would have been worth showing my son if he complains about changing the oil or something!

  12. #89
    Member pawpaw's Avatar
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    I actually tried the Restore product on my Mirage. I think it is based on sodium hydroxide. In my case it did not solve the problem.

    Even if one of these products has some ability to dissolve the goo it is a tough job getting flow through the long, plugged, tubes to remove the goo.

    For a product with some effectiveness to work it might still take an extended time or some kind of flushing system (I dreamed of a sous vide in a bucket with the cleaner solution and a pump to backflush the core with hot, concentrated, cleaning solution for an extended time).

    I tried at least three products (Zerex, Prestone, Restore) and nothing worked for me so I did it the hard way.

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    Moderator Eggman's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by foama View Post
    As far as I have found out, only one product claims it can rid the coolant system of silicate gel!

    It is called Cummins Fleetguard Restore (not to be confused with Restore-plus which is something different!).


    The manufacture claims:

    "Restore is an alkaline-based chelating cleaner particularly effective in removing silicate gel.
    It is also effective in removing oil contamination and solder bloom"


    If I were in the States where they sell it, it would be the first thing tried, although it only comes in large containers.
    I posted about this stuff last year in Daox's thread: HVAC heat blows warm/hot on drivers side, cool/cold passenger side (warranty issue)

    There's also another thread going for this stuff that I need to update. Look for the thread Coolant Flush.


        __________________________________________

        click to view fuel log View my fuel log 2015 Mirage ES 1.2 manual: 49.6 mpg (US) ... 21.1 km/L ... 4.7 L/100 km ... 59.5 mpg (Imp)


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