'03 FX35 -- Wet carpet in footwell near center console after heater core replacement

[eM3doc]

A while back my girlfriend overheated the motor and blew the head gasket. She'd tried using some head gasket leak fix stuff, which ended up clogging the heater core. When I replaced the motor, I pulled the whole dash and put in a new heater core too.


Day after getting everything back together, found water in the footwell carpet. I was already drained from all the work and really didn't want to yank the dash again, so I did a "temporary" fix - just bypassed the heater core completely by connecting the inlet and outlet hoses together behind the motor. That's held up fine for 2 years, but obviously there's no heat.


Now I'm getting ready to sell the car, but I don't feel right about leaving it like this. If someone who doesn't work on cars themselves bought it and took it to a shop to fix, they'd get absolutely hammered on labor costs.


The knock sensor just went out, which means I gotta pull the intake. While I'm in there, I'm planning to do the valve cover gaskets too. This actually gives me pretty good access to the heater core connections.


I know it's probably a long shot, but figured it couldn't hurt to ask - is there any way I might be able to fix this heater core situation while I'm in there, without having to tear apart the whole dash and HVAC system again? Would really appreciate any tips or suggestions. Just trying to do right by whoever ends up buying this car.

[AZhitman]

Certainly a valiant effort, kudos to you.

Considering the age of the car, there's no way I'd go to that level of effort.

If the heater core is leaking, and you can't easily access the hose connections to check them, I'd sell it as-is (with disclosure, of course).

I suspect the difference in value won't be worth the additional work.