Posted 03 March 2012 - 07:12 PM
Just a quick update on my heater.
Got it during the week but only had a chance to get it fitted today. Unlike techie I managed to get mine fitted without ending up mortally wounded, I think this was down to having already had my heater out in the past. The instructions provided by fezzasus are nice and easy to follow and my old heater came out relatively unscathed and without being a total pain (I don't think you could ever describe getting the old heater out as easy).
The only modification that I had to make was to trim the bleed screw down by a few mm's, this wasn't strictly needed but made life a bit easier. The new heater went in a lot easier than the old one came out and although being a snug fit it went in without any real problems. The only cursing was down to the top bolt being a bit of pain to get to but as these things go this was just a minor annoyance (normally working on cars involves a lot of cursing from me). Once the heater was bolted up fitting the rest was pretty easy but one word of warning. Despite being careful I very nearly cut one of the coolant pipes too short, obviously this would have been a bit of a headache so if in doubt cut to long then trim if needed.
After getting the heater in I ran out of time so have yet to remove the dash and fit the heat controller, but as fezzasus tells me it will default to 'hot' I don't feel the need to rush to fix this with the weather getting colder again.
Now im sure what everone wants to know is does it work. At this stage I cannot give you a full run down as I my coolant level needs topping up a bit (me being clumsy I lost more than I should have) and with the pub beckoning I haven't had time to bleed it all etc. But anyway in short YES it does work, in fact it made me jump when I started the car as the increase in flow was so much it blew all the crap out, grit and all making a fair bit of noise in the process. My biggest issue with the old heater was that it was **** at demisting the screen (one of a long list) which just makes it rather annoying first thing in the morning. The new heater does not have this problem and it demisted fairly quickly, not quite up to new car standard but a whole different league to before. To me this is worth the cost alone, so any increase in heat output is a bonus, I will update on this when I have some more time (hopefully tomorrow).
So cheers fezzasus, one happy customer here.
Anything I would change.... Not really. The only thing I might do is put a different wiring connector on, not really needed but I think I may have the bits around to do it.