[Author's Note: Due to an unexpected but overwhelming welcomed interest in my heater core experience, I decided to go back and add some more technical comments to my heater core entry for those who wanted more details. Feel free to email me if you have any questions.]

So as I'm leaving work last Tuesday afternoon, I start to think about what I want to do that evening.  Perhaps I can finally get out and go riding as the temperatures have finally cooled down.  Or maybe I can continue my writing streak and pump out another potential award-winning Entry.  Or I could even pamper myself by cranking up the A/C and enjoying the frigid air (To heck with the electric bill for just one day).  I barely remember that Jen has Tai-Chi class that evening so I have to be home at least by 6:45pm.

I remember that I have a CD that I was thinking about exchanging so my plans now include dropping by K-Mart on the way home to see if they'll do the exchange.  Yep.  I got my whole evening lined up in front of me.  Nothing but fun and relaxation.

But obviously my life hasn't been complicated enough of late with my $600 car repair from a few weeks ago, and our brief stint without air conditioning.  Nope.  Just to make life even more interesting, as I approach my car, I notice a long, stream of greenish-tinted liquid in the drying process under my car.  There's so much liquid there that a good deal of it has flowed out past the back end of the car.

"!!@**#$*#!@$*!!*$!$!!", I exclaim, only not using so many words, I mean, symbols.  My feelings of elation, contentment, and anticipation take a nose-dive to anger, disbelief, and despair.  "Not again," I think, just when I thought my automobile coolant problem was gone, here it is staring me in a face not more than a week and a half later.  My first thought is that the service station somehow screwed up when they installed my water pump, but my fear was that something else was wrong.  Looking under the car, I see a steady drip of coolant coming from the undercarriage of the car, its source unknown. 

Since Co-worker Buddy had already left work, my chance for a ride home had passed and gone.  No way did I want to drive the car home either as I didn't want to run the risk of overheating it with what little coolant was left.  Especially since I was going to have to take it back to the same mechanic the next day to see what was wrong. 

So I manage to grab a work vehicle and drive that home instead.  My mood for the evening was completely shot, as I stewed all night about another potentially expensive car repair.  It seemed like the cooling system has been problematic all along.  Had I been journaling in the past, you would have heard about the Cracked Coolant Hose of 1997, the Loss of A/C in 1999, and the Water Pump Epidemic of 2000.

I made sure to get up earlier than usual Wednesday morning so I could get to work earlier and take the car to the mechanic.  I fill up the radiator with coolant so it will make the less than one mile trip to the service station.  After arriving there, I tell the mechanic the problem, and he quickly looks at it and tells me I have a broken heater core.  Estimate: approximately $270.  Crap.

[Symptoms of damaged heater core: massive leakage of antifreeze in short amount of time; when system was pressure tested (i.e. blowing compressed air through radiator), there was antifreeze coming out of the overflow tube that runs from the heater core compartment through the firewall; occassional liquid found accumulating on front passenger & rear passenger floorboard <-- this was due to antifreeze leaking out of the heater core into the heater core compartment and then flowing into the passenger floor areas.]

But for a change, reasoning gets a better part of me, and instead of immediately authorizing the repair like I usually do, I tell him to hold off on the repair until I can think about it.  In other words, no way was I going to let myself get screwed this time until I found out if I could fix this problem myself (or at least with help from friends.)

Back at the office, I consult with fellow co-workers and call our wonderful next door neighbor to discuss the feasibility of fixing the heater core myself.  After some more research on the internet, I decide to go ahead and try it as a do-it-myself project with help from my neighbor.

[How the heating/cooling system works: Essentially, the heating/cooling in a car is a closed system. The radiator keeps the engine cool by circulating antifreeze through it. From the radiator, the antifreeze travels through a water pump that circulates it back to the radiator. There is an offtake tube that runs into the heater core which is usually located inside the car under the dash. When the heater is turned on, a valve is switched allowing the hot antifreeze to flow into the heater core and then back out to the radiator again. By passing this hot antifreeze through the heater core, it distributes heat to the interior of the car. When the heater is not being used, the antifreeze just circulates in the engine compartment only. Since it's a closed system, the amount of antifreeze should not change significantly. If it does, there is a leak somewhere, either the heater core, the water pump, one of the hoses that connects the system, the radiator, or even within one of the head gaskets.]

I managed to pick up the part on my way home from work, and even managed to get the car all the way home before the temperature gauge redlined.  Later that evening, my neighbor comes over and we proceed to disassemble my car.  After first confirming that there were no other leaks other than the heater core, we attack the job from the inside of the car as the heater core is located under the dash just to the right of the radio/climate control center console, close to the firewall.

[Actually, the first thing we did was flush out and drain the radiator by filling the radiator up with water, running compressed air through the radiator, and letting it drain out through the bottom. Then we had to jack the car up and my neighbor went underneath and disconnected the tubes that were connected to the heater core at the firewall. Obviously we let the car back down before we started working on the interior.]

Now is when things get interesting.  Of course the screws on the inside of the car are not standardized, so not only do we need metric sized sockets, we also need English sized sockets as well.  Fortunately, my neighbor is well-stocked in the tool department and we commence unscrewing the panels located underneath the dash, the glove compartment, and eventually the heater core itself.

[Once we got the panels off and the glove box off, we had to disconnect some interior hoses that vented heat from the heater core to the interior of the car, we had to remove this plastic housing that those hoses were connected to (which fit right above the black, plastic heater core compartment), and then we had to remove the black compartment that the heater core was actually located in.] 

As anyone who has done car repair knows, it's always easier to get to the part and disassemble it than to put everything back together.  By this point, we have three different types of screws all strewn over the inside of the car.  I also gained a new appreciation for car mechanics because they must be taking yoga or contortionist night classes.  I'm of a smaller size than the average guy, and even I had problems positioning my body to where I could reach screws that needed to be unscrewed.  I couldn't even fathom how Big Burly Mechanic Joe could do the same.

So finally, we get the heater core pulled out from under the dash of my car and examine it.  Sure enough, one of the hoses is cracked.  Which would explain why we sometimes leaked fluid into the interior of the car.  Which would explain why I had a big puddle of coolant leaking out of my car.  Which would explain why the...never mind. 

Of course being a complete "noob" in the car repair business, I didn't even think to look at the brand-new heater core sitting in the box I purchased earlier in the day.  My neighbor immediately tells me that all I need to do is get a new hose to replace the cracked one and we'd be set.  But that basically meant we had to wait until the following day to finish the repair.

[Fast forward to the next day...]

During lunch, I run over to the nearest car parts store just down the street from where I work.  And again, my unfamiliarity with car parts shines right through.  "I need a heater core hose for a 94 Chevy Cavalier," I tell the sales lady waving this broken hose in front of her.  She replies in the negative as she doesn't think they carry any of those there.  "You may want to try your dealership," she adds.  Just then, one of the other guys working there steps out from the stacks of parts.  He takes one look at my part and promptly informs me that I need a new heater core.  I object, telling him that my heater core is fine, I just need a new hose.  A debate ensues, and after showing him what a complete ignoramus I was, I learn that the hose I needed was probably part of the new heater core sitting in the unopened box in my garage. 

Before I walked into the store, I was feeling mighty proud of myself.  After all, I had figured out what was wrong with my car, picked up the correct part, and even managed to locate and disassemble the defective part (with help).  After I walked out of that store, I felt like my giant-sized ego had been squashed into nothingness.  Damn.  I hate it when that happens.

[Fast forward to that night...]

Sure enough, the heater core comes with the hoses attached.  Duh.  [Mental note:  Always open the new part before going on a wild goose chase for a component of that part.]  With help from my neighbor again, we get the new heater core reinstalled without too much trouble, but spend the next hour and a half figuring out how to reattach all the various plastic panels we had hastily dissembled the night before.  Fortunately, we managed to get everything back to where they belonged (more or less), and we only had a few screws leftover.

[Make sure you know how everything fits before you start taking things apart. We had some trouble re-attaching the plastic case that the interior heater hoses were connected to - only because we couldn't remember how it went back on. I also wish I had taken some photos of this whole process, but I didn't have a digital camera at the time. As they say, a picture is worth a thousand words.]

We plug the hoses back into the heater core in the engine compartment, refill the radiator, start the car and then wait.  Now is the moment of truth.  Is the cooling system going to work correctly, or was there something else wrong that we had overlooked.  After a while, the thermostat opens sucking all the coolant into the cooling circuit.  We look in and under the car.  No leaks. 

As a final "test", we take the car out for a spin around the neighborhood, keeping a close eye on the temperature gauge.  It sits firmly at the one-quarter mark.  Even after driving up this mountain that we live on.  After getting back to the house, we check for leaks and check the coolant level.  Everything appears to be working as it should and no leaks are evident.  Success!

I thank my neighbor profusely for his help, and walk back into the house with my head bigger than Jupiter.  You thought I had a big ego the day before.  I was ready to take on the world now.  Until at least my next major car repair which will probably involve replacing the engine or transmission, or something that would actually require a professional mechanic to perform. 

But in the meantime, I'm going to enjoy my sense of accomplishment.  And offer to help anyone who needs their heater core replaced.  As long as all I have to do is replace their heater core.  And not get all the panels screwed back on.

[Final author's note: for those people new to car repairs, I would highly recommend you get a copy of a Haynes manual for your particular make & model of car. It shows how to do a lot of the repair work with diagrams, photos and descriptions. Unfortunately in this case, all we had was a description of where the heater core was located and no photos. Good luck to you all!]