SO, this xmas I decided to give rather than git. My friend has been dealing with no heat in his 85 for over a year and I decided to do the xmas thing and put some heat under his xmas tree. I went down to Kragen and bought a Mexican made brand spankin new heater core. I went home and commenced to tearing apart the entire cab of his 85. After it was all over (8 hrs later,busted knuckles and all) I pushed the little lever far to the right and HOT HOT HEAT came pouring out of every opening in the dash! I actually felt better than I ever have about xmas.
I have yet to see a thread showing pics of an actual heater core sitting in its home. So here you go.
These pictures were taken in the pouring rain bright and early on xmas morn.
enjoy!
















NOW the thing has more heat than you can shake a mexican made heater core at!!!

 

What did he say? did he buy you a senorita for the night?

 

looks like fun, wanna do mine?

 

Holy mother of Pete Im not lookin forward
to that job.... Thanks for the great pics, Ive always wondered!

 

Nice christmas present, ive done heater cores in two 86 4Runners, so i know what you went through to do it. Its not really a hard job to do, its just very time consuming.

 

yes... tedious very tedious. I ended up with two dash board screws and two 10 mm bolts. I have no idea where they came from or where they go.
The interesting thing about doing a HC r&r is how much time elapses. I was into it 5 hours and the heater core was still in its housing. I was like.. DAMN, this is all the father I am??
ahha

 

haha its so retarded.. at work the computer says 1.9 hours..

 

you are a good friend...

that looks like a good day worth of work there. I'm hoping mine stays together!!

 

Way to go Spearo, I'm sure the ghost of Christmas Yet-to-Come will remember your good deed.

 

Thats bs, there is no way you can replace a heater core in a toyota under two hours. The first heater core i did took me six hours because i had never done one before and didn`t know were all nuts and screws were that had to come out. The second one i did took me four hours because i knew were everything was and what needed to come out.

 

Mine had better live for ever..

 

I need to do mine, but I need to replace all the controls and plug the heater core back in to the coolant lines... Should take me a weekend. I gotta get all the parts too (and that's expensive)

 

It shouldn`t be that bad, you can get the heater control and cables from a wrecking yard, and you can get a heater core for around 60 dollars. If you need the heater control valve thats under the hood, then upgrade to one from an 89 truck or 4Runner, there plastic so they won`t rust or corode. I put one on my 86 4Runner and it works good.

 

hmmm, interesting. I will have to look into it. I have two Toyota specific junk yards in my area, so parts shouldn't be a problem.

 

I wouldn't get the heater core at the JY. I got mine at Kragen for $30.00 new. As for all the other stuff the JY has it all. As for doing a heater core in under 2 hrs. thats incredible. No way I could do it under 5hrs now and I have done one. There is just too much stuff to remove around the heater core.

 

I wasn't planning on getting the core from the junkyard...

I hear if you cut a hole in the firewall, the removal and reinstall goes a ton faster, but then you have a hole to fix...