Aluminum coolant lines corrosion - check 'em when it's easiest

[LINUS]

Pics turned out crappy, but if you look about 1" from the end you can see wher there is a hole in each one. Aside from the hole, look at how much metal has eaten away, leaving thinner spots in the greater area.
It doesn't really make sense, but the corrosion areas are on the outside, and directly under the hose clamp. One of them was so thin I lost all but a wafer of metal when I undid the clamp and slid the hose off. The other on was marginally better, as the alum was paper thin, but still poked through with no effort with a scribe.

I was already planning a new heater core since it's 18+ yrs old, but ended up ordering these lines too. ~$20 ea. - but they would be a more of a pain to change down the road.

If you are doing a swap, I'd check these while you don't have a motor in yet.

[joshh]

Good info. Why would they be doing this?

Good thing I'm not using the heater core at all.

[e304me]

where is this stuff? on the firewall?

[LINUS]

on the firewall?

Correct. The 2 lines that pass through the firewall. Makes no diff, but I have the heater core where both lines bolt to a common flange.

I wouldn't even begin to guess at the idea of how or why this happened. Mixing different colors/types of antifreeze is my main suspicion, but since these lines made it 18 years, I have at least 15 before I even bother to worry about it again. And since I do decent maint. on my cars, this might be the last set of pipes I buy.

I just wanted to let everyone know that these seem to be a weak link - at least on my car. I might have had a previous owner do something totally brain dead involving the coolant, so maybe it's a isolated incident. But looking is free when you have the motor out, so at least if you look you can guage if you are good to go or not.

[e304me]

whats the best way to replace the heater core?

[trent]

I know those lines go bad, so I changed them, and modified them when I did the swap for better intake clearance.

[LINUS]

I know those lines go bad, so I changed them, and modified them when I did the swap for better intake clearance.

So maybe this is a somewhat common issue? I hadn't heard of it before, so I was just chalking it up to Murphy's Law and my luck.

[LINUS]

whats the best way to replace the heater core?

I dunno what kind of answer you're looking for, bud. Drain it first??? Once you break loose the hoses in the cabin, you're just 2 phillips screws from it sliding out.

I shoved my wet/dry vac over each pipe from the bay side before breaking the core loose. Worked pretty good for me.

[trent]

So maybe this is a somewhat common issue? I hadn't heard of it before, so I was just chalking it up to Murphy's Law and my luck.

Naw, the commonly go bad with age, as we know aluminum doesn't respond well to coolant, especially when most people never change their coolant. Those pipes are very thin, and they get pin holes. Pretty common actually.

[e304me]

do you guys think i should replace my core and valve as preventative maintaince? It seems like it should be around 300 for the valve and core, but id rather not have spill everywhere when i least expect it