January 2008 Newsletter for Front Wheel Drive Models
Page 9: Heater Cores

Winter time has come and the temps are dropping! With icy windshields and freezing temperatures your cooling system takes a bit of a beating. Lately in the shop we’ve been seeing some cooling system failures around heater cores and the orings in the connection pipes to the engine. With some help from R&D we’ve come up with a silicone replacement oring set (see below for applications) that can withstand a greater temperature range and last longer over the original rubber orings. We’ll be creating a replacement ‘How to’ video shortly to aid our non local customers with removing and installing the new ipd orings and we’ll be offering an instructional guide on heater core replacement. So if you’re starting to smell small wifs of coolant or if your seeing a sticky film show up on your windshield call us for help and we’ll get you the parts and service you need.

If you starting to smell a sickly sweet odor, seeing steam out the vents, or you’re experiencing a sticky film on the winsheild chances are your heater core is leaking. A leaking heater core can also be tough to diagnose if the above symptoms don’t show up but your coolant is always low with no signs of external leaks. The carpet in 850 and 70 series is two peice in the front with the heater core in the middle. When it starts leaking the coolant gets underneath the carpet and doesn’t soak through due to the waterproofing on the back side of the factory carpet. This means heater cores can leak for quite a while before you might notice it in the interior. If you are finding your coolant level always seems to below but can’t find any external leaks take a close look at your heater core, it might just be your culprit.

If your smelling but not finding a coolant leak, your heater core orings could be leaking. These orings reside at the connection point at the firewall where the heater core rubber lines go to and from the engine. When they leak you’ll occasionally smell coolant coming from the vents in the dashboard and usually just after initial warm up on a cold morning. ipd now has upgraded silicone orings to replace the short life span factory rubber orings. With a broader operating range, these orings will last even in super cold weather environments. Each heater core line requires 2 orings so order 4 to do a complete job.