1994-2002 [Subscribe to Daily Digest] |
The AC/heater core drain will catch a leak and it should not hit the floor, but a plugged up drain horn might cause that. That drain is very low, you were under the vehicle to get at it? Some AC's leak onto the floor from blocked drains, some AC boxes crack, prehaps from water trapped from a bad drain, then freezing and that cracks the box. There were problems with failing anti frost switches early on and that may have busted the boxes. Don't see that happening any more. So the ones that wanted to fail did and the others seem to be going the distance. And a better one was introduced into production. Don't remember when the cutoff was. (These bad switches also made the compressors run hot and their replaceable overheat switches failed and that was the symptom to identify the anti frost switch disease.)
Might not be the core that is bad, but the o-rings that it uses to connect the hose barbs that go through the firewall. But you still have to remove the core to renew those. These o-rings at the heater core so simplify installation of the heater/AC module into the body on the assembly line; but the o-rings have a limited lifetime exposed to the heat and the coolant. So this is a regrettable design detail. The coolant pump to block adapter suffers the same fate and the coolant pump gets R&R's and replaced because of two o-rings going hard. Perhaps a different rubber compound would retain its properties and shape than what is currently used, or maybe nothing will.
And after doing the stat, many of the small hose clamp joints can leak as the OEM clamps are very poor at creating even clamping loads on small old hoses. Small SS clamps from the hardware store are better, but the slits in their bands can cut the rubber, and a layer of duct tape folded over on itself as will prevent that. The later production ?year? uses spring clamps which create even loads and will 'follow' the rubber as it extrudes from under the clamp and retain clamping forces over the years. So that is a huge improvement, but not always from the point of view of doing DIY work.
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