Leaky heatercore...
 

Alright, the heatercore that I pulled has a small leak in it. And from working on cars, I know that most radiator leak products are gunky and like to be pumped through a rad. I don't think it would be a good idea to dump thick stuff into the heatercore, but I don't know of anything else that would work. Any ideas?

can you see the crack/hole or whatever it is on the outside? or is it buried up inside the fins?

If you can see it, you might try cleaning all the corrosion and gunk off around it to get down to bare metal and then trying to seal it with JB weld or real (not the 5min stuff) epoxy.

Unless you have a special hard to find one, or something expensive, why not chuck it in the trash and get a new one? Mine was 20 bucks new. Your time is worth money too. It would truly suck if it leaked again later and shorted things out , or lost its coolant and the system fries.

I can't see the leak anywhere. So I need to try to seal it from the inside. I don't want to just chuck it, because I'm kind of a thrifty person...

Thrifty? Good, otherwise, I'd ask you to donate it to me, so I can repair it and send it to someone else!

To find the leak, the easiest way I found, is to rig up an air nozzle into a tee, and pressurise the core, as you dump it into water. You'll find the leak right away. A bicycle air pump is fine.

You can then plug the leak the best way you see fit: JB Weld applied on the leaky spot, and/or silicone the entire area.

Here's a pic of my contraption, in 1/2" and 3/4":

That's a very good idea. I'll have to do that. What do you suggest to repair the leak though? I can't exactly get to the core...

Yeh pressurise the core (dont go over 20psi or it could explode 10 psi is a safer bet)

Then what i do is put a bit of very dilute washing up liquid all over the core and you will soon see where the air is coming from but Bigbens method would work aswell.

If you can get to the leak then then you could try soldering it. Ive fixed cores where i could not see the leak by using copious amounts of solder and flux before but its difficult

If you can locate the leak's area down inside the fins, you might consider removing or deforming some of the fins in that area to get a clearer view of the problem area and make patching it easier.

I have to agree that it may not be worth your effort, speaking in both time and money. If you can pick up a brand new core for $20, do you really think that risking your entire computer to a questionable patch job is worth the savings?

dangit, now I'm beginning to regret buging a used heatercore. Mine doesn't leak at all, but it is kind of grubby. I'm hoping I can find some good advice about cleaning it out.

Once you know where the leak is, you'll have to make that determination.

Like I wrote, you can either plug the hole with JB weld, or if you can't get to it, fill the whole finned area (a small triangle in the whole core) with plumber's Goop (silicone adhesive).

The JB weld worked great on my car... :rolleyes: