Hey

I have a 1991 turbo wagon with a leaky heater core.

I also have a parts car, a 1993 wagon that my wife totaled sitting in my driveway.

Money is tight, and I want to harvest the heater core from the parts car.

The head is off the engine and I have good access to the firewall.

So my question is this: I am tempted to take a sawzall or angle grinder and cut the firewall around the heater core and attempt to extract it through the engine bay.

Anyone had it apart far enough to determine if this would work?

Any and all inputs are welcome

Thanks

The biggest pain in changing the heater core is knowing what parts that need to come out and how. I would remove the heater core from the donor car in the normal way. What you learn will make changing it a lot easier. Also check your vacuum motors for leaks while the dash is apart. Changing them is easy at this point.

"Any and all inputs are welcome..."

Re-post and select a forum other than ALL / ALL so it gets the attention of the correct model Volvo - probably 900 I guess.
--
Art Benstein near Baltimore

Money is the root of all wealth.

I was able to remove the HVAC unit from the passenger side footwell without removing the dash on my 82 242. And that was done without breaking stuff. If you can be more aggressive with it, I'd think you could access the core through the passenger footwell without too much difficulty. Otherwise, once that unit is out of the car, removing the heater core is relatively easy. No way I'd try and tackle it by cutting the firewall (at least on a 240) - not worth the trouble.