How Do I Change A Heater-core No A Chevy Silverado Truck?

Question

How Do I Change A Heater-core No A Chevy Silverado Truck?

2 Answers

Answer Question

Answer 1

"You'll also need to remove the instrument panel carrier, " - This is very misleading, 90% of the work is in this step, and it's many, many hours. Make no mistake, you will be gutting your entire dash. Your center console has to come out, then everything forward of the seats needs to be removed, one overlapping piece at a time. You will be amazed at how many things need to come off, on both sides. When you finally have removed every piece of the dash down to the firewall, you see that you need to remove the air conditiong which requires a special tool and losing your refrigerant. Then a giant heater assembly comes out via screws in the engine bay. Once you have that out you need to rip IT totally down, to finally get to the heater core, the most deeply buried part in the vehicle. It actually takes less time to do an engine swap. You will be cursing GM by the 4th or 5th hour of ripping apart your baby. It is inexcusable how one critical, leak-prone, clog-prone part is buried underneath the entire dash. On a ford explorer, 3 screws remove a cover, and the heater core falls out. You don't even need a wrench. It takes 10 minutes. The GM version guts the whole vehicle and is 8-10 hours for an experienced mechanic. Shame on you GM.

Answer 2

Step 1

Open the drain at the bottom of the radiator on your Chevy Silverado, and drain the coolant into a clean container that can be tightly covered and set aside for reuse. Then disconnect the negative battery cable and, if your Silverado has air bags, wait at least 2 minutes before performing further work to prevent accidental air bag deployment.

Step 2

Disconnect the heater hoses from the heater core. Also disconnect the temperature control cable and the mode control cable from the heater case assembly. You'll also need to remove the instrument panel carrier, and be prepared to disconnect any electrical connectors that may get in your way. If you do disconnect electrical connectors, tag each end of the connector to ensure you don't get the wires mixed up later.

Step 3

Remove the screws and nuts holding the heater case assembly in place, then remove the assembly and place it on a work bench. Remove the screws from the cover, open it, and extract the heater core, which looks a little bit like a waffle made out of graph paper with a couple tubes sticking out of it.

Step 4

Return the heater core to the case and screw the cover into place. Return the heater case assembly to the vehicle and mount it in place, tightening the mounting screws to 35 inch pounds of torque and the nuts to 80 inch pounds.

Step 5

Reconnect any electrical connectors you may have disconnected as well as the mode control cable and temperature control cable and the heater hoses. Replace the instrument panel carrier, then reconnect the negative battery cable.

Step 6

Refill the engine cooling system and bleed air from it as necessary. Run your vehicle up to normal operating temperature and check for coolant leaks and normal climate control operation; remember that the heater may not actually produce heat until your vehicle is at normal operating temperature.