Mileage: 88,493
Now that the inner fender well is out of the way, I can actually move onto the task of getting the heater core out. The heater core is held inside case called the heater box. The heater box is behind the dashboard and takes up about 40% of that area. It contains two vacuum actuators that control vent doors and a linkage that controls the temperature blend door. All of the duct work that directs the air in the car is attached to the heater box.
I have to admit, I didn’t do a very good job documenting the removal of the heater box with pictures, but I will do my best to go over each step. The first thing that needed to come out is all the vents. These ran under the entire dash board. They probably all didn’t need to come out, but since I was replacing the carpet, I figured it would be easier to have them out of the way. Next, you have to disconnect the three vacuum lines and the temperature control linkage. Next, disconnect the heater hoses running to the heater core from the engine. Finally, you need to remove about six or seven bolts and nuts actually holding the heater box to the firewall. Some of these you access from the inside of the car, the other you access from the engine side. After you get the heater box removed from the firewall, you need to rotate, push, and pull and the heater box can be removed from under the dashboard!
After the heater box was removed, four more screws held the heater core back plate on, and another three which held the blend door panel assembly in place and the heater core could be pulled right out. You can see by the pictures below, the heater core was in bad shape!
After I pulled the heater core out of the heater case, it marked a good point in this project; all the disassembly was complete! After the heater box was removed, I set up the box fan again inside the car to finish drying out the firewall pad. I used a couple scrap pieces of wood to hold the pad away from the firewall so the air would get behind it.
I also took this time to start checking out the carpet I purchased. Over a year ago, I bought the replacement carpet I needed from F-Body Warehouse in Dunlap, TN. I purchased the “Carmel” colored carpet because I knew I didn’t have the lighter “Camel Tan” colored carpet in my vehicle. When the “Carmel” carpet came, it was not a good match, so I returned it and got the “Camel Tan" color. This wasn’t a 100% match, but was closer than the “Carmel.” Well, after I got the original carpet out and hung it up, I started to look at the areas that were covered up by the console and trim pieces and have never seen sunlight or dirt. After a short evaluation, it was obvious the “Camel Tan” was not going to be the correct color either.
The above carpet samples were provided to me by Auto Custom Carpets, Inc., which is the company that manufactures the molded replacement carpet for the Trans Am and almost every other vehicle on the road today. The samples are (from left to right): #7037 Camel Tan, #854 Carmel, #7087 Doeskin, #7295 Medium Doeskin. Since none of these colors were close, I called ACC and they had me send them a piece of my carpet which they will compare against the colors they have to offer and send me back the samples that matched the best.
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