I got a nice green surprise on my passenger floor today as i was driving, a puddle of coolant. I replaced my heater core after it blew just last year. Am I wrong or shouldnt these things last longer than a year? What could be the cause of this core blowing a leak again?

I dont feel like, or have the time to deal with this right now as i need my car over the weekend, so i was thinking i would just get a small piece of copper tubing, and connect the two hoses coming out of the heater core together until the end of summer when it starts the get cold out, then i will put in another core. Would this work? Im assuming one tube is flowing in and ones flowing out for the coolant, so bypassing the heater core all together would make sense right?

Yes, you can bypass it without any trouble.

thanks!
anyone have any idea what might have caused this thing to blow again?

JUST replaced one the other day. Go to Autozone to buy a 5/8 -> 3/4 bypass tube. I got one for $1.79 with clamps. I lost my heatercore because of overheating. The coolant system was overpressurized, and when the car overheated and stalled, the coolant flashboiled and caused the heatercore to explode.

Well... maybe not EXPLODE....

But you get the idea.

-Shawn

quote Originally posted by rmphoto: Am I wrong or shouldnt these things last longer than a year? What could be the cause of this core blowing a leak again?

A heater core should last a lot longer than a year. Were did you get the replacement? Parts car, or used? Or has your car been overheating? That will weaken the care and make it fail.

When I replaced my core I got a new one because I didn't want to have to do it again so soon.

It was a bran spanking new core. Should have lasted longer than that. My car doesnt overheat or anything.
I cut a piece of the broken heater core tubing off and used that with clamps to bypass it. All seems to work so far.

But, my car goes through a lot of coolant, id say probably 2 litres a month i have to add. Is this normal? Could it have anything to do with my exploding heater cores?

I had the same thing happen in my Supra, It was a slightly blown head gasket, I would add coolant about once a waak and then my radiator blew up from the pressure. One way to check this is to start the engine when it is cold and see if your radiator hoses feel like they have pressure in them, or pop the fill cap off the engine and see if you see a lot of bubbles. Also some shops have a tester they can put over the fill and check for exhaust gasses in the fluid. I hope this is not your problem, Good luck

New cores can be damaged fairly easily before or durring installation. It's not dificult to crack a solder joint if the inlet/outlet tubes are hit or stressed.

It can also matter what brand the part is... Whenever possible I only buy Modine cores and radiators. I've never had problems with Modine and they have a decent warranty.

Since the core is fairly new... It may be cheaper and just as reliable to have a radiator shop fix it. Don't try to do it yourself. Even when you know how to solder well with a torch, getting these joints right is a specialty most people don't have.

It may be warm enough to avoid having a heater in good weather... I actually had to run the heater twice here this week to keep the glass from fogging in the rain.

------------------
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thanks everyone for the help.
i bypassed the the core and everything is fine, at least until it gets cold again...

not too sure why the core blew again, but i have a feeling it was the solder right at the joint of one of the tubes like ^ that guy said...

anyhow, thanks!

I would read ogre's article about blocking the heater core. It can cause problems.
Don

quote Originally posted by ka4nkf: I would read ogre's article about blocking the heater core. It can cause problems. Don

hmm i read everything in the HVAC section, couldnt find anything about blocking the heater core...
i dont see how it would cause problems, its fairly simple, coolant goes in, coolant comes out...now coolant just passes by.

Pressure in the cooling system is generated by thermal expansion. It's regulated by the radiator cap to not exceed aroudn 15 PSI. Defects in the system that can create excessive pressure are a bad radiator cap and/or a blown head gasket or cracked head that allows combustion pressure into the cooling system. If your loosing coolant without a visible leak it's a good chance it's getting sucked into the combustion chamber through a large crack or blown head gasket.

JazzMan

He's not blocking the heater and shouldn't have problems from that. Bypasing the core is ok.