Sadly this is NOT a surprise. Years ago a local Camaro restoration and parts shop was having issues where the heater cores were made wrong, the tubes were spaced wrong and wouldn't mount in place.
Do you have a radiator repair/recoring shop near you? IF so, take your old correct heater cores to them to have them repaired/recored.
In the meantime, so you can drive the car, just bypass the heater core with a short piece of copper tubing the right OD and just long enough to slide into each end of the heater hoses so you can clamp the hoses to the tubing. You can hide the tubing by sliding the hoses all the way on the tube and butting up against each other. Then hide the splice under the air cleaner assembly. Though you may want to opt for a brass double hose barb coupler just so the hoses don't decide to slide off the smooth copper tube.
Yes, it will work and yes again that you WON'T have any heat and IF the car overheats you will not have an extra way to help cool the engine.
David from WNY
On Saturday, June 24, 2023 at 05:11:33 PM EDT, LLLLllllloooyyydd via groups.io <heintz58@...> wrote:
My car and I are currently in heater core hell.? Years ago when reassembling my car I purchased a new brass unit that failed immediately with a hairline crack at the tank seam where one of the tubes is installed so I grabbed an aluminum Spectra unit which have since overwhelmed the market from one of the usual parts suspects.? I found that the design of the Spectra unit made it about 1/8 inch too long to reinstall the cover back on the heater box when even a minimum of internal padding was installed so I made a seal for the cover which was ever so slightly thicker than the original to allow me to seal the case,? ?When installing the heater box with the Spectra unit installed I found that the tubes barely protruded enough to allow the hose clamps to be installed and, at that point, the clamps were deeply imbedded in the foam rubber seal that covers the firewall in the engine bay.? No I was not trying to rig this project, I had an event to get to and had no time for sourcing another core.
I recently removed the unit to resolve the issue and found the tubes for the heater hoses are 1/2 inch shorter than each of the 2 brass cores I have (which are within 1/8" tube length of each other).? I ordered another core with a different manufacturer and part number only to find the same dimensions and a sticker with the same part number as the Spectra unit, 94571, stuck on the bottom of the core.?
Does anyone have a good source for heater cores with proper dimension or should I try to find a radiator shop to repair what I have?
LLLLlllllooooyyd? ?
