I'm trying to get mine out w/o removing the fender. Just searched and found some say, no problem :), others say, nope fender has to go :(. I wonder if the car-to-car tolerances make this easy for some vehicles but not others. Mine just doesn't want to give. Its a small-block, no A/C.

my 68 the heater core cane right out...what is the prob you are having?

are you trying to pull it from the outside of the inside?

U dont have to remove the fan/housing firewall cover to remove the heater box that is inside the car behind/below the glove box

I think you are getting confused with removing the blower motor. In order to remove the blower motor, you must remove the inner fender to access the screws and the motor.....if you haven't modified your inner fender.

To remove the heater core, you will need to remove the nuts to the cover (5 of them on the engine side) and pull the heater box from inside the car. You might of over looked the lower nut at the bottom near the frame rail. It's hard to get to that last nut because of the lack of room. You need a box ratchet wrench or regular box wrench to reach in there and loosen the nut. It's hard, but can be done with a little effort.

To remove the heater core, you will need to remove the nuts to the cover (5 of them on the engine side) and pull the heater box from inside the car. You might of over looked the lower nut at the bottom near the frame rail. It's hard to get to that last nut because of the lack of room. You need a box ratchet wrench or regular box wrench to reach in there and loosen the nut. It's hard, but can be done with a little effort.Very good instructions. Remove heater hoses and join them together with a length of copper pipe or a Prestone a/freeze flush T.

You also may have to remove the glove box, pretty simple. Remove the latch and door and cardboard box comes out. The door can be fanagled about and the arm can be gotten out from the dash to remove the door rather than have it dangle. Now you have a clear view of the heater box.

Before breaking the box loose from the firewall, its held on by old sealing compound, lay down a large place of plastic on the floor. Start the plastic underneath and touching the heater box over to above the trans tunnel continuing on to the front seat and finally over the rocker panel. There is always residual coolant in the core and you don't want to get the carpet wet. By laying down plastic, you've created an easy method of cleanup, grab the most inward edge of the plastic sheet and roll it out to the rocker panel. No mess!

Others here have said most aftermarket cores don't fit correctly. You may want to take you core to a rad shop for repair to keep the fit.

Good luck.

Others here have said most aftermarket cores don't fit correctly.

I think you nailed it.

Problem was the lower pipe coming out of the core. It hit on the firewall cover because of the angle (it points towards the outside of the car to clear the engine heads). The old one was broken and came right out. The new is aftermarket.

The new one would not go back in without the firewall cover being moved about 2" towards the outside of the car.

I finally loosened the inner fender well bolts enough to wiggle the fender, which gave me enough room to remove the lower right bolt on the firewall cover, which gave me enough room to move the firewall cover 2" which gave me enough room to leverage the pipes into the engine compartment.

Whew!

Thanks for the all the comments, they were very helpful. :hurray: