Anyone done the Evaporator core before?

[Fu Manchu]

Ugh. I am deep into this project I thought would take a coulpe of days, that hasn't. I have discovered numerous other challenges seperate to the Evap leak.

I have had to have the HVAC apart to get the evaporator out.
Gave the whole lot a bloody good clean and sterilise too. Yellow mould and mildew, mud and crud, and a cheese like stink that belonged in a Dutch cheese cellar.
All gone. All clean. All reassembled.

Between the Fan housing and the HVAC unit, there was a thin, grey foam gasket.
This was manky and not reusable. It had torn when separating the two components.

Holden don't have it listed.
It needs to go in because it looks like water might leak if its not there. It mates to the drain tray.

I have tried Clark Blubber. They had some EVA and EPDM foams that were thin but too dense to get it to work I think. I bought them and tried them out.

Would urethane sealant be ok? Silicone maybe?

Anyone work in air-conditioning that might know of some foams to use?

Anyone done this Evap thing?

 

[lmoengnr]

Go to Bunnings and look for draft stoppers.

 

[Smitty]

Go to Bunnings and look for draft stoppers.

yep ...
Raven make a great range of them.. all different widths and thicknesses

 

[Skylarking]

If you don’t find anything appropriate at Bunnings, you could give any home air conditioning or heating wholesaler a call. Ask them about such foams as they do use various types of sealing methods on their systems.

For example my home central heater uses double sided foam tape to seal the access port to the flame sensors. These flame sensors need yearly cleaning but luckily the sealing foam is reusable for as long as the sealing surface remains sticky. In any case it looks similar to the foam in your pictures.

I wouldn’t go down the urethane or silicon sealer route as it’s a real bodgie job which makes future maintenance rather difficult. And considering the effort you have and are still going through, you may as well do it correctly.

What’s interesting is all that smelly cheese you mention which I guess will be on the evaporators of most climate control systems after many years have passed. As such I really need to get off my but and have the VF afterblow feature turned on as it may reduce the likelihood of such cheese I really don’t look forward to having to rip the dash apart in 10 years time

 

[Fu Manchu]

I will be doing a write up on this job. Not easy finding info so there will be loads for anyone else once I’m done.
I also suspect there is a far easier way to do this, because Holden instal the whole lot in one go. Pad, steering wheel, booster, pad assembly. All the hoops we have to jump through.

As for doing it right, yep. Cringe to think bodgy sealants are needed.

This job has also uncovered what I believe is a significant flaw in VE’s.
I will be doing a write up on that too.

 

[Skylarking]

^ If you writing up about Holden’s significant design flaws, we may be waiting a long time for that war and piece sized novel

Jokes aside, have a look at how easy the workers at the plant build starting at 6:50 mark and the install around the 9:30 mark.

Watching the video makes me just a little sad that our dumb government lead by ideology allowed such a strategically important industry to pack up and shut shop.

 

[Fu Manchu]

Thanks for the help @Skylarking!
Problem solved.

Just did a half day tour of Perth AC suppliers and landed exactly what I was after from ACTROL in Malaga.

I can also use this for some extra sealing on the evaporator before it goes in, around the TVX mount (new evaporator doesn't have as much sealing there), to add an extra seal (by layering it) on the heater core, around the cabin inlet and to make some new seals on the fire wall that went on some of the HVAC mounting bolts.

 

[losh1971]

I admire your patience with this Fu Manchu. I'd say most people would throw this job in the too hard basket.

 

[Fu Manchu]

The job itself isn't hard.
What is hard is the lack of information to do it.

Also, if I was to have paid someone to fix this, so much else would not have been done because time is money.
They would remove old evap core and put new one in, get it working and move on to the next customer.
No cleaning.
Broken trim clips, missing screws, rattles develop, and driving experience drops.

If this is done by me, it gets done thoroughly, only be it, a little slow.

 

[losh1971]

I have only ever replaced a core once before so on the most part know what it is like. Exactly right it's not overly technical but there is a bucket load of stuff to remove for the heater box can come out.