Well after 11 hours saturday and 3 hours today, I got the Heater core replaced on the durango. This was the most obnoxious job i had done on a car yet. I must have wasted at least 4-5 hours fixing stuff that broke.

Did anyone else who has done this repeatedly break the HVAC housing? I got cracks and chunks broken in a few places that glued back in nicely with epoxy. It didnt help that I had to bust off one of the mounting studs because the bolts would only spin in the housing and i couldn't get to hold the bolt with pliers and turn the nut on the stud behind the trans dipstick.

Also after i had it back together I went for the start up. I almost had a heart attack when half the stuff didnt work, the odometer said no bus, and the lights and chime were going crazy. I didnt want to take the dash off again. I was extremly relieved when I noticed that I missed a ground which i guess was for the BCM and that fixed everything.

This is just a little venting i needed to do after this grueling weekend project.

I hopefully will never have to do it again. haha although it is sweet to have some killer heat in the car now.

 

I had my heater core hemmorrhaging coolant this summer so I know your pain. I broke my vacuum line going into the heater core from the firewall and didn't realize it until I tested out the controls after zipping it back up. I almost lost the other end of the line in my heater core as well. A good pair of needlenose pliers and a section of hose to splice the two together fixed my issue real quick though.

 

When you did yours, did every stud from the hvac box through the firewall just spin with the nut? It was a major pain in the butt to have to hold all the studs with pliers while working a wrench around them.

I still need to get my a/c evacuated/recharged. any ideas if the system will be harmed if I wait a week to do that? I know that the compressor won't engage since there is no refrigerant.

 

Just make sure no one turns on the ac and you should be just fine

 

Allright thats good to hear. I made sure that the compressor will not engage by unplugging it for the time being. It will get refilled this weekend by my friends dad. Best part is that it will be free.

 

I busted the plastic housing/box around the blower all to hell. The dampener door was pivoting on a crack at best. I had to replace the entire box housing but the breakage was my fault.

Keep in mind, when anyone pulls the dash... regardless of why you are pulling out the dash... you should replace the evap, heater core and the blower motor all at the same time. You do NOT want to pull the dash a second time to do one or the other when they weren't done the first time.

IndyDurango

 

+2 for Indy.

I had my heater core replaced just after my warranty expired! But my friend that is also a mechanic, I had him inspected the A/C core and everything else that is behind the dash and I was lucky they were still in perfect shape so I just had to change out the core. It was a 8 hour job in all. I was worried that he may have left out a nut or two when he put it back together, but everything went well.

A recommendation: I would stick with the OEM heater core from the dealer. Don't get a aftermarket core: Reasons after a 3 week research before I got the oem core:

1. Most aftermarket heater cores only offer a 1 year warranty on the part.
2. Most aftermarket heater cores look cheap. They have plastic parts on the core itself.
3. OEM heater cores come with 3 year warranty.
4. OEM heater cores are solid copper/brass housings. No plastics.

Price difference between OEM and aftermarket cores are about $30-$50 bucks.

Now I do REQUIRE you to VISUALLY look at the OEM core while you are still at the dodge dealer parts counter. Luckily for me I did that. It took 3 OEM core inspections before the 4th core out of the box was brand new. The first 3, looked like it was used, or it sat on the shelf too long and showed signs of metal deterioation. I would assume this is the reason why alot of users that reported in this forum had some negative feedback on OEM dealers installing the heater core on their D's, only to have the core blow out in a year or two.

I would safely apply this same recommendation when looking for a aftermaket A/C evap coil, unless for Dodge, you have to replace the whole HVAC unit to change out the coil.

 

I didn't replace the evap core or the blower motor. I hope that I don't regret not doing this but the evaporator looked almost new. All i did was remove a few leaves from the coils.

I bought my heater core from Napa because while it cost $53 after taxes, the only dealer around me that had the core wanted $225 for it. There was no way I was going to pay that much for the core. Also the core I got from Napa was aluminum compared to the original copper/brass and it had no plastic pieces on it. It looked to be very good quality except that the amount of fins was slightly less than the stock one but it still blows nice and hot air.

 

andyg,

That's a great deal from Napa. Unfortunately for me, at the time when I lost my core, they did not have a core for my durango back in 2003. Most aftermarket cores were priced around $100 bucks when I did my searching. The Dodge parts folks charged me $150. So the $50 difference was worth it as far as warranty and the materials used to build the core back at that time.

 

No twisting nuts/bolts for me. Everything came out without a hitch after tracing where everything was that still needed to be removed. I went aftermarket on my core and yesterday I got going and noticed a fine mist coming out of the vents. Sniffed it and it smelled like coolant. I turned the blower on then off again and never saw any more mist for the rest of the day. I didn't clean out the box very well before reinastalling it so I've got my fingers crossed that it was just condensation in the box and on the core (after being parked for days) that had picked up that dried up coolant off of the bottom of the box. I had pulled a vacuum on the system when I went to refill the system with coolant and had no leaks at all.

Also anyone who does a heater core swapout make sure to ground the new core to a good body ground. You don't need electralysis wiping out the new one.