Follow up to my previous post about my heater leak. It took a while but I finally took a couple weeks PTO to deal with this issue and several others but before that time off arrived a more pressing issue developed, my turbo took a dump. Another post on that as well as a few other items I addressed while I have been out of commission. I ordered a used complete heater matrix off of Yahoo Japan and actually received not only the heater but also the complete AC and fan box as well.
this is the old and newer box after removal. Once removed I discovered it wasn’t my heater core that was bad but the return (brass) line that was the issue. It appears that because of two dissimilar metals
(galvanic or bimetallic) corrosion occurred causing a hole in the tube.
The core seemed fine but I put the newer one in anyway after I tested it. As you might imagine I also found that all the foam insulation on the various vent shutters were dry rotted and needed to be replaced even on the newer heater box. I could have ordered them from MegaZip but that takes time and so I procured some acceptable material locally ( not always easy in Okinawa) and proceeded to make my own seals.
I won’t insert all these pics here. Assembled the matrix back together for installation.
I was expecting to see more corrosion around the dash area next to the window but surprisingly enough there was very little other than some surface rust on the dash which I took the time to cleanup and paint before reinstalling.
I of course painted the glove box door as well and several of the plastic dash inserts. I have done heater core replacements before and this one was not the worst as I had expected it to be, hardesst was a 99 Dodge Dakota, easiest was a 78 Jeep CJ5. Take your time, prepare containers for screws to the various components and areas, electrical is really no bad providing no one prior to you had butchered a radio install like mine had which I cleaned up. Make sure and lubricate all bushings and cables for heater. If your doing anything else in the dash area like replacing light bulbs now is a good time for that. It is not a one day or weekend job by yourself, but it is doable and I had to do mine outdoors, on a gravel driveway ( really do miss my garage) unless you have everything you need ahead of time and know all your doing is having to deal with a heater leak. Good Luck. I will be making other posts about my Turbo rebuild as well as my EGR delete.
