I Need All Kinds Of Help

hey there. i joined this board hoping that one of you might be able to help me.

i've got a 91 cutlas ciera that treats me right, except on occasions such as these.

i like to do DIY repairs as much as i can as long as it's within my limits. hopefully somebody can help me.


here's my problem:


i noticed that the floormat on the passenger side of the car was wet. upon inspection i saw that it was antifreeze. great. so, i took apart most of the dashboard trying to get closer to the problem. the fireproofing(i guess... insulation stuff) on the panels from under the glovebox was saturated. i kept looking and found that the leak was coming from a black plastic piece to the left of the glovebox and behind the heating controls. i'm assuming this is part of the air conditioning unit.

my question is, what could be the problem here? i really know nothing at all about air conditioning.

i have the service manuals for an 87 cutlas ciera(my old car) and they're about 90% accurate, so i've been looking to them for help, but i really don't know where to begin looking.


help please!

It's not the A/C, that's your heater core that brings hot water into the cabin for your heater. You've probably got a leaking hose line or the heater core has sprung a leak somewhere. You'll probably need to remove the heater core to determine where the leak is.

yeah, i was searching around the other forums and that seems to be the problem.


you have any idea how much it would cost to replace a heater core? i'm pretty broke right now.

oh also, what are the hazards when doing that? i was reading my service manuals and they seemed pretty adamate about avoiding this R-12 stuff. anything i would need to worry about?

Autozone has one for $17. You can replace this yourself very easily and will probably take a couple hours of your time. You may want to replace the heater hoses at the same time and you will need some antifreeze. You don't have to worry about the AC since the two systems are totally seperate. The only dangers associated with this job are a couple of skinned knuckles!

hey, thanks for the help ya'll.


i've been looking at it and it seems like it's definately in my capability range.

i'll hit this up as soon as this rain lets up.