anyone know, if I disconnect the 2 hoses going throught the firewall into the AC will I be Injured? (release freon or whatever the coolant for AC is?) I think I need to remove this to get it out of the way to get hte heater core out.

tia,

Anvar

 

You won't be injured by releasing freon, but it could get expensive to replace the freon. R-12 is very expensive and you can't buy it without a license. The conversion to R-134a is pretty pricey too. Plus, you are in CA, where gov't is king.. Make sure none of your neighbors know what you're doing, they might call the EPA on you for releasing "dangerous chemicals" (BS) into the atmosphere. It may be cheaper in the long run to take the car to a repair shop to have them evacuate the freon, that way, when you go back to have it recharged, it will be a bit cheaper.

 

is there any way to get the heater core out without removing the ac box?

 

Sorry.. Never tried it.. but I would think that it's accessible from under the dash.. Dash off and stereo surround off.. Not sure if the a/c airbox needs to come off or not..

 

I had the air-cond evaporator (the under dash bit) out of my right hand drive car (Australian Spec) Series 3 recently. I presume that the left hand drive is the mirror image of the set-up in my car.

The fan, evaporator and heater box are all in series and have connector tubes between them. The fan blows through the air-cond evaporator and the heater box regardless of whether you are cooling or heating (obviously at most one of these is on at any point in time).

Disconnecting the tube between the evaporator and the heater box should allow the heater box to be removed independently. The only thing that would prevent this would be lack of space to physically remove the unit through either the driver or passenger side footwells.

I would take the approach of removing the centre console and try to remove the heater box unit straight out this way, leaving the evaporator in place.

 

Yes it can be removed without unhooking the AC evaporator box, however to do it you will have to pull he dash subframe. Because on the passanger side it is boxed in by the AC evaporator box and on the other you have the steering column and foot petals to deal with. Even if you pull the AC evaporator box, I couldn't emagine doing it without pulling the dash.



Here's what it looks like with the dash subframe removed. Vent distribution/Heater core box on left, AC evaporator box middle, blower box right.

Oh and note you must disconnect the two heater lines on the engine bay side that go through the firewall.