Coolent leak

[sackamous]

I just bougt my gf a 89 corsica for a few hundred bucks. She said she was driving and heard a loud pop. Not long after the car started to overheat. I was looking it over and the radiator was about dry, I filled it up and noticed coolent leaking out of a little bent downard pipe comeing out of the firewall can some one explain this to me or point me in the wright direction. What is this pipe for I dont see any hoses that could have come off of it.

thanks
derrick

[plymouthsrock]

Sounds like your heater core is leaking- fairly common problem. My 89 has gone through two.

John

[richtazz]

I agree. The pop she heard was most likely the heater core tube coming out of the body. The tubes are press-fit, and can be rotated for ease of installation. When they get old, they will pop out under cooling system pressure and leak coolant.

[sackamous]

How hard is something like that to change? can it be fixed with some of that radiator leak stuff, thats what the guy at autozone said would do the trick. If I have to change it is there some where on the internet I could find a deacent price on one?

[jsgold]

you should use stop leak on as an emergency / last resort until fixed properly. A minor leak it would hold but not a large leak. And then you will need to flush later as the stop leak has a nasty habit of clogging up your system, hurting your water pump or finding it;s way to your overflow where is creates an ugly mess. These are usually cheap so I would not deal with internet unless maybe ebay. The problem is putting them in. Corsicas have little room to work with and you would need to remove dash most likely. Would strongly advise having a shop deal with this. Some are very reasonable. some charge up to 150 bucks though...

[skycor]

it looks hard, but it's not too bad. i put one in my daughters '91. it's maybe 3 or 4 hours work. less if you know what you're doing. i did not. best bet is to cut the hoses at the firewall and then break the pipes and shove them back thru. you'll have enough room to reattach. hardest part is disconnecting/reconnecting the vent hoses that run to the vents pointing to the side windows. and they're cheap. i paid 22bucks at the auto store. do a search and you'll find more info. you don't have to remove the dash but you do have to remove some "under" stuff. don't worry about getting all the screws back in. i had leftovers too

[loosenut74]

where you live i would do it for free if only you would pay for parts, and bring it to me... if you dont believe i could do it look to unauthorized link removed by Moderator believe me i would do it in four hours... bring it to me and get it done right...