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Rust repair...

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pjsmetana

pjsmetana

Jedi Warrior
Offline
What started out as a harmless coil swap (nothing wrong, just swapping a not shiny for a shiny)...

As you can see, its just some nasty surface rust that needs to be taken care of. So I need to remove and paint that bracket that holds those heater tubes, and the surface under it.

Question is, are those lines normally filled with coolant? I just put new coolant in a few weeks ago, and I don't really want to drain it all again if I don't have to. I just want to take the bracket off and paint it without having to worry about coolant all over the deck. The angle of the line makes me think that theres going to be coolant filled up in the line whether I drain it or not. Maybe theres some drain under the dash that will make all this easier?

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Pete,

AFAIK the heater core doesn't have a drain valve.

You could pinch the line into the valve and the PS heater core line, then remove the PS line and siphon out the heater core if you want to keep the bracket side dry.
 
Another possibility is to drain the system, then disconnect a hose and blow air through the heater core (Shop air if you have it, but lung power will do). That should get your valve area reasonably dry (although you'll probably still get a few drops when you disconnect the line from the valve).

Might be easier to just wrap some plastic around it, though, and paint around it as best you can. Looks like the bracket isn't too bad where the valve is mounted. Maybe you can unbolt the bracket from the deck for better access, and just twist the hoses a bit ?
 
TR3driver said:
Looks like the bracket isn't too bad where the valve is mounted. Maybe you can unbolt the bracket from the deck for better access, and just twist the hoses a bit ?
Click to expand...

Its not too bad, just surface rust that I absolutely have to tackle or it will take over quick with the salt air here near the beach. It is already unbolted in that pic, I just have the bolts sitting in their holes. I suppose loosening the clamp and such, paint, then put it back, but I really need to paint that bracket too while I'm in there. Just spreading some POR-15 around on it does not seem like the right thing to do when I have the proper sprays on the shelf in my garage. But then again... I do drive it more than I show it. Function over fashion wins again?
 
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