XJ heater core replacement.

[crimsonride]

So my jeep is starting to leak coolant under the pasender side framerail. This seems really odd to me since I can't track it back to the hoses or radiator so I'm sure my heatercore is leaking.
What's involved with replacing the heatercore and which side do I get at it from? I'm guessing it's probably throught the dash.

 

[trpl xj]

Yep through the dash, and if you have a/c you will have to unhook all those hoses where they go through the firewall as well. I did mine in my 89 a few years back and it was a major pain in the butt.

 

[crimsonride]

Damn! That's what I was afraid of. I do have AC but it's not charged since I couldn't keep my compressor with the new engine.
Is there anything I need to know before I start tearing my das apart?

 

[JF1]

If you have a Chiltons or Haynes manual, it does a pretty decent job of describing it. I didn't think it was too bad of a job. Did it in about half a day stopping for lunch and such.
Removing the passenger seat is a must and gives you plenty of room to work since it's up under that side. The Haynes manual didn't mention that. It's only 4 nuts that hold the seat down.
You don't actually have to remove the dash but tilt it up.
You will need to remove 3 nuts from the engine side of the firewall.
If you want, I can scan the pages out of the Haynes and e-mail them to you.

 

[Brett]

Don't forget, this was originally a 2.8 V6 Cherokee, so the firewall is a bit different than a 4.0, like most of ours on here. Things might mount up differently on your Jeep Chris.

 

[crimsonride]

Yeah, no kidding, by different you mean harder and more difficult too.

trpl xj, if you don't mind, I could use those pages. I don't have a manual. Guess I should have one though.

cjacobsen17@hotmail.com is my email.

Thanks

 

[DaveB]

I have a factory service manual for my cherokee and when I had core problems I went to this manual which describes a procedure where you can get to the core by splitting the heater box into two pieces. There are about 9 screws that you take out and you also have to cut a plastic strap that goes around the heater assembly. After that you can pull the back half off without having to remove the entire heater assembly from the jeep. I did it on mine and it was much easier to do than I thought and didn't take that much time.
Dave

 

[crimsonride]

Hmmmm...that sounds like it might be less work. I'm not sure what to do because it stopped leaking. I couldn't smeel coolant inside the jeep so I wasn't sure if it was the heater core but I couldn't really find where it was leaking from, only that it was dripping from the crossmember and passenger side framerail and I couldn't see anything on the firewall or anywhere around there.

This is confusing.