re: coolant in interior of 164

["Sedon, Doug (OD/ORS)" <sedond@domain.elided>]

hi danny, ewe said:
>I've already checked Colin's 164 page but was unable
>to find anything on this matter. I'm leaking anti
>freeze coolant in my 164's driver's and passenger's
>wheel well. I smell coolant when I put my a/c on vent.
>My windshield fogs up with this coolant when the car
>is at rest with the a/c off.  Collectively, what is
>this problem? Is it the stepper motors again? How much
>will an Alfa dealer charge for this? Frankly, I'm
>starting to get tired of these problems.
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sounds like yer heater core went away.  funny, this weekend, i finally got
around to replacing the heater core in *my* 164... ('92, w/155k miles).  w/the
help of the shop manual, printed out from the car-disc cd, i was able to pull
the heater core out in 3 hours.  i was quite pleased w/this, as all sorts of
stuff has to come out 1st - driver's side wiper arm, everything removed from the
mini-fire-wall, removal of mini-fire-wall, removal of a/c box, removal of hvac
fan.  access to the screws on the mini-fire-wall is *not* easy!

wooda prolly had everything back together in ~3 hours, too, but upon removal of
the a/c box, ewe can see the back of the dreaded stepper-motor ass'y.  of
course, these have been shot on my car for ~2 years, and as i have a gnu set, &
also a set of those aussie metal gears, i yust *had* to go for it.  so, i pulled
off the glovebox (a real pita, cuz i dint print out anything from the car-disc
for this), then proceeded to cut a hole behind the glovebox, to access the front
of the stepper ass'y.  ( i should have foto's awailable via email of this *hole*
tomorrow, if anyone wants to see).  well, i now have ~9 hrs total into it, and
everything's almost buttoned up.  another hour should do it.  

if anyone needs stepper repair only, i tink it's still easier to remove the a/c
& cut a hole behind the glove-box, than to remove the entire dash.  be sure ewe
have the freon removed from an a/c freon recycler!  if yer gonna replace the
heater core, mebbe now's the time to upgrade to those metal stepper gears, even
if yer plastic ones haven't yet gone away...

doug "two-fer-one" sedon

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