[Shotimes] Heater Core ?s.

[George Fourchy]

On Sat, 26 Oct 2002 09:18:16 -0500, Paul L Fisher wrote:

>I haven't heard of more than 1 or 2 LEGITIMATELY bad heater cores. 

We just had this thread.  I make no claims for any cars other than my own.  I have had to
replace cores in all but the last two of my pre-owned aquisitions (not including the
Lowrider, which was purchased new).  As Ron Porter said, they are not necessarily
cream-puffs.  But they ALL still needed cores, and they all ran well, except for the Plus
from Hell, which is now on its third (more or less) engine (and now also runs well).  If
I could ever get that stupid web page to load pictures, I have visual proof from inside
it that you could add another LEGITIMATE bad core to your list.

I'm not quite sure what being a cream-puff or not has to do with heater cores blowing. 
The SLOrider has a non-grounded plenum, which will eat cores (total of 4) faster than a
foot of toe-out will eat tires at 100 mph.  It's a cream puff.  I don't think that is the
problem with any of the others.  Perhaps, like the bad run of a/c liquid lines I ran into
in 2000, there might have been a bad run of heater cores.  The one in my Fiesta was
purchased new by me in the late '80s, and after several years it started to seep at the
base.  I removed it, had a radiator shop open it up, and found a very poor solder job
from the factory.  A little clean-up effort by the shop, and it sealed up fine and is in
the car now, 10 years later.

Maybe one should have a qualified shop open the core and resolder the end caps before it
goes in the car the first time.

George