Has anyone ever changed the heater core on an '87 with A/C? Looks to me like it may be fairly straight forward, but if there are any tips or tricks, I'd love to hear about them.

Thanks in advance!
'87 XLT
302 FI, C-6
Black and starting to rust away!

 

Should go like this. Remove hoses, remove glove box liner, remove about seven screws around core cover, remove cover, remove core.

 

Get one from one of those life-time guarantee places. Over 16 years I've replaced mine three times.

 

Don't think that you can just loosen the clamps and pull the hoses off. They are baked on. Save yourself a lot of time and trouble, and just cut the hoses and clamps off with a mini hacksaw or something.

 

>Don't think that you can just loosen the clamps and pull the
>hoses off. They are baked on. Save yourself a lot of time
>and trouble, and just cut the hoses and clamps off with a
>mini hacksaw or something.

Well...... The best way to remove "Baked" on hoses is to loosen the clamp, slide it way from the firewall... Then take a utility knife and slice the hose an about 1 inch (effectively splitting the hose) then take a screw driver and break the baked hose free from the heater core. Since your replacing the heater core, you should also be replacing the heater hoses

That seems to work well for me...

 

The factory installed clamps are hard to loosen too. You will need to loosen the screw, and they are hard to get a screwdriver on considering where they are placed. Once you loosen the screw, the clamp will still be firmly on the hose. You have to put a screwdriver in between the clamp and the hose and push the clamp up. I don't even play around with these hoses and factory clamps anymore, I just cut through both with the mini hacksaw.

 

Got the core changed in about half hour. I didn't have any trouble with the hoses(They come off real easy when you use a 3 foot long prybar! ) Thanks for the tips!

Dizeldawg
'87 Bronco XLT
302 EFI C-6 (With heat now!)

 

Yea, we all know how hard them hoses can be, if you ever get an oppritunity to change the cooling hoses on a 89 mustang 5.0, dont, its like a bronco but twice as crampt.