hey i have another problem. The guy who owned my car before me cut a hole in the inner fender to get to the heater core, then he parched it up. Now my heater core is broken and I was wondering if I had to remove the inner fender to get to the heater core. I just got finished installing a new motor, headers, and the whole works. I didnt want to tear out the inner fender or evaporator case, but if there is a more easy way please let me know. Thanks for all of your help, im going to start my project tomorrow.

justin

Is the car originally a small bock? If so, I don't understand why he would have butched the inner fender. To change the heater core in a 69 w/ a small block is relatively simple. There are 4 nuts you remove from the engine side of the firewall, 2 on top of the box and 2 on the bottom. Once the hoses are off and these nuts are removed, you can remove the heater box from the inside of the car. Free the heater box of the control cables, and the whole thing will pull out inside the car. Then it will be obvious what to do, as the heater core will be staring you in the face.

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Shawn Peterson
1969 Z28, 406SB
http://www.geocities.com/corsican69

Shawn - I belive you may be thinking of a non-a/c car.

In order to remove the heater box you must remove the fasteners and the hose that are located behind the fenderwell. The fasteners are not easily accessable without removing the fender. It's likely that whoever did the work in the past butchered the fenderwell (like mine) instead of removing the fender. Don't try to remove the fenderwell, it is easier to take off the fender. While you have the fender off take a close look at the fan motor and the heater hose. There will not be a better time to replace these items. You do not need to remove the evaporator case. It does not support the heater box. You will however have to remove the two nuts on the engine side of the evaporator box since these are studs attaced to the heater box frame. For the under-dash stuff, you will need to remove the glove box and the flapper valve on the kick panel. A lot of the ductwork will have to be removed as well. If you are thinking of replacing the firewall insulation this is the time to really consider it since heater box removal is recommended. This design was not one of GM's best and is a royal pain to repair.

OOPS. Your right Carl. I have a 69 Z, so my brain was stuck on the no AC case. Should of known from the evaporator box comment. http://www.camaros.net/forum/smile.gif

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Shawn Peterson
1969 Z28, 406SB
http://www.geocities.com/corsican69

Shawn - Carl - Justin:
I have a '69 Camaro that was a SB, now a BB. The heater box is for the SB. I am in the process of converting it to a BB heater box system. The SB heater box has the inlet-outlet tubes exiting the firewall from the right side of the heater box (looking at the heater box from the front of the car). The BB heater box has the inlet-outlet tubes exiting from near the center of the heater box cover. This is so the tubes will have clearance with the right side valve cover and right side of block / exhaust on the BB.

Anyway, there are more than 4 screws to remove, and that is why the darn inner fender skirt or, really, the fender needs to be removed. There are 2 screws up under the fender that go into the flange around the blower motor. (The total number of screws is, I believe, 7.) So, there is no way to get the heater box off without removing the inner fender skirt or the fender.

A mechanic friend told me that what "they" often do (or did) when they had to replace the heater core was to unbolt the inner fender skirt and pull it down and out of the way. "They" would wedge it out of the way with a short piece of 2x4. I also read about this trick in an article on this problem.

However, as I struggle with getting to my heater box, I am having zero luck at moving the inner fender skirt... anywhere! I do believe I am going to have to take my fender off unless some miracle happens soon.

It doesn't surprise me that the former owner of your car cut a hole in the inner fender skirt!! He must have been very frustrated. This is a job for PATIENCE!

Good luck. Post your findings if you have time. Thanks.

Jim

hey jim, thaks for the help. But after tring to take off the inner fender with no luck I moved on to tring to take off the fender its self, but I had no luck on that. I think my right side fender was patched up because there are no holes for any of the camaro or engine emblems, so i didnt want to tamper with that fender too much. The hole was already cut in the inner fender and the metal was still in tact it just got folded back and then held back in place by a metal rod. Any way I just extended the hole a bit more cut off the old hoses added new ones and off I went. I didnt care how the hell my dad and I fixed the heater hoses I just wanted to drive my car. I havent been able to drive it because of a motor swap and tranny problems that started back in december. But I was able to drive it with no exhast system all through my neighborhood at about 7:30 pm so it was ok =) I still have to work some bugs out of the carb (its an old 650cfm Q-jet thats seen better days) and timing and so on. Thanks for all of your help. If you can, plaese check out my camaro in the INFO exchange its titled "so-cal 69" thanks!
justin

jamr-

Can it be done that way? Sure, but the risk of damaging a body panel or flaking the paint is very high. Some repair shops may try this method, but it is the cheap, fast, and risky way to get it done.