63 Heater Box & Duct Work Finish

[Greg W.]

I wish I had listned to all when they said to change the heater core when finishing my interior. Because now I have a leak in the heater core.

So I got it out of the car and want to go ahead and refinish both interior heater box assembly and the blower box in the engine compartment.

They both seem in good shape, and have ordered all the goodies from Dr. Rebuild. But how should they be finished? The blower box is painted black but has visiable fiberglass, the heater box assembly on the inside looks real good, just thougt I should put a fresh coat of paint on it?

Help, hate to miss this great weather.

[Timothy B.]

Re: 63 Heater Box & Duct Work Finish

Greg,

If the inside box looks nice I would just wipe it off to remove any white grease, carpet glue etc. there should not be any paint on the fiberglass inside box. The metal portion of the inside gets a semi-flat black paint. Outside, this part got sealer then some blackout so if the fiberglass is not damaged I would just clean it and reinstall. Don't over tighten the four speed nuts and break the studs loose.

The gasket kit comes with flapper gaskets for the duct doors and requires removing the rivets and seperating the inside halves to install. That's the right way to do the job..

Make sure to test the new core before you install just to be sure...

The 63 has donut shaped seals that go over the 3/4 and 5/8 tubes before the heater hose, I don't believe this is used 64 and up.

[Stuart F.]

Re: 63 Heater Box & Duct Work Finish

Greg;

Are you going to reassemble this by yourself? (no helper)? They say you can't, but I did using a roll of duct tape wedged between the housing under the dash and the cross brace (w/trim tag). You just need to hold the housing tight to the fire wall in order to start the pal nuts on the blower housing. If you have a helper, that's great, but if not you have to improvise as I did. Good luck.

Stu Fox