This evening I did a post mort on a leaky rear heater core that I had lying
around.

 (believe it or not, unlike a lot of folks, I want to install a rear heater
in my van)

The plastic "caps" come away from the ends of the core after bending back
the numerous metal tabs that hold them in place. I had determined that this
particular core was leaking from the union between the caps and the core.

Imagine my surprise when, upon disassembly, what looked like rotini fell out
of the tubes of the core itself.

Spiral formed brown plastic pieces that I can only guess served to increase
the heat transfer from the coolant to the heater fins by causing the coolant
to swirl and allow more of the coolant to come in contact with the tubing.

Good idea, but the plastic was very brittle and none of the spirals were
intact for their entire length.

You have to wonder if broken bits of these heater rotini could clog the
heater itself or other regions of the coolant circuit.

Alistair

albell@uvic.ca
'82 Westy, diesel=>I4 gas

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