Hello, I have an 03 Sedan 2.4 and noticed a puddle of coolant under the car, level was decent so I took it for a drive, temp gauge went slighty higher than usual but stopped there so no problem, but there was no heat the whole trip. So the next day, I refilled te coolant and had heat again for a few days, then nothing.

My first guess would be a small leak in the system possibly those metal coolant lines that run to the heater core could have rusted out, the paint was bubbling off in a few spots. No steam or funny smell inside the car so the heater core is good and no wetness around the water pump. I'll pull all the hoses and lines tomorrow and report back with the results and what the problem was.

My question I have here though is if this is a common problem on these cars or if anyone had something like this happen to them before? and probably the biggest question is if there's any easy way to get those metal lines out to inspect them, they are burried deep with a P/S line running on top and the timing belt cover is probably an inch or 2 away from the shock tower, and they are right down in there. If not, or if they are bad, I don't see a problem with replacing everything with just hose.

 

I have the same need.... to replace that cobweb of steel line carrying coolant from the firewall to the front of the engine.

Am told the engine needs to be dropped to do it. There must be an easier way. Is there?

 

The way I did it was just cut out the old metal lines and replace them all with regular heater hose and it's been working fine for almost a year now. The biggest problem Ihad was the hose kinking as there's a few tight bends. Icut the hose at the bends and put a couple elbows in, there's still some bad kinks in it but the heat works fine so I just left it.

The original metal pipes ended up rusting out where the mounting brackets were welded on so it was weak to begin with. I connected the new hose directly to the heater core and ran it to the fitting on the thermostat housing and to the lower rad hose connection from the water pump. The new heater hoses will be running close to and touching the P/S lines and A/C lines, maybe that's why they used metal tubing there, but you can probably isolate them if you wanted to.

To replace it with another stock metal pipe assembly you will need to unbolt or remove the passenger side engine mount and bring up the assembly from the bottom.

Hopefully that answers your questions, good luck.

 

Thanks for the detailed response.

I understand exactly what you did, but can you clarify a few things. The location of the angles you had to install... are they by the firewall, shortly after the connecion to the heater core? And are the near kinks where both hoses connect towards the front of the car? If you were to do it again, would it be done any differently?

Were you able to follow the same path along the steel line, under that mass of lines on the inner fender, or did you go above it? I've been told the "altitude" of the lines matters, but don't know if that's bunk or not.

The part of me that thinks of things that'll never happen wants to use copper lines in place of the steel line, with fittings for the rubber hose to fit onto. Would that be worthwhile considering?

This line has got to be one of the most complicated messes on that car....

Thanks!

 

I followed the same path as the original lines, under all the other lines and right above the motor mount. The height of the lines would matter for when you're bleeding the air out of the system, you'd typically want all your lines to be below the bleeder valve on the thermostat housing. I also considered running the lines around the drivers side of the motor just because there's tons of room but that would use more hose and cost more.

The only thing I didn't like about the install that I might fix later is 1 of the heater hoses is touching an A/C line next to the shock tower, It might give me a little less A/C performance in the summer. In all I just used 1 90 degree elbow since it's all I had where the line comes out of the thermostat housing, the rest of the hoses I just bent and routed. Other kinks in the hoses I know of are where they come connect to the heater core and where they bend around the back corner of the motor by the shock tower. The bottom hose that connects to the water pump tube had some exsisting rubber hose on it so I believe I added the new hose with a 180 degree coupler to the end of that where it connected to the metal lines, somewhere near the bottom front passenger side of the car.
Lastly, the heater core also had some 90 rubber hose 90 degree angles coming out of it to connect to the metal lines, I didn't reuse those because I didn't have enough straight 180 degree couplers, but you can do that, or just put a 90 degree coupler in there with all new hose. Also the 2 hoses for the 2 runs I got were different sizes, 1 was bigger than the other. To get the right side I brought both sides of the old metal tubes to the parts store and they matched them up.

 

Thank you. I read and reread your comments and understand them perfectly. Makes a lot of sense. Anecdotally, I thought the hoses were different sizes but thought that couldn't be. Again, thanks for setting straight.

Appreciate your help.

And for those reading this wondering what they're posting about, this should be one of the simplest repairs to do yet it's amazingly difficult to plan and looks like one needs small hands and long arms to complete. But as ET pointed out, it can be done without removing a motor mount and heaps of other things.

 

I just wonder why I haven't heard of more people with this problem since it seems like a poor design. I'd hate to think how maybe people went to the dealers and got it replaced for over $200 with the same faulty parts. Of course a quick bead of weld would fix the original metal tubes also.

 

My steel line is a bed of thick flaking layers of rust. No way JB would fix that. And the local Dodge dealer wanted some $240 for the part (I know, it can be had online for a lot less) and several hours at $130/hr to install it (which also seems high). Said they drop the engine, and would change out a lot of other maintenance parts at the same time. No thanks, I don't want that can of worms.

I'm tempted to bring this to the local high school shop. The car becomes a demonstration by the instructor and he calls on students to do whatever he thinks is appropriate. They're replaced some sensors and maintenance items on our other car, diagnostic electronic testing beyond just reading Pxxx codes and everyone's been happy. I'm just afraid of someone inadvertently damaging the tubing at the heater core or another component, although I might, too. And it's mighty tight quarters!

 

Ya if you have that much rust, then no way. Mine just had a pinhole leak near a mounting brakcet that was welded on at the factory, bubbled paint and thin melted steel walls in that area.

 

How long would you give this victim of rust belt syndrome before it's terminal: