Just received my 87 Chevette Heater Core....

[wannaoc]

Ok, I just received it and WTF?! I like to save money and all but if my case looks like **** then I'll skip the cheap stuff. But then again after I get the modifactions that this needs to work it costs more than the standard 120 mm rad I can buy from any site.
http://home.cfl.rr.com/extremepcparts/images/all.gif
That's what it looks like next to a 120mm fan. I don't mean to sound like I'm flaming you guys but look at this thing! I respect all advice I get from people that offer it but..... It's huge, ugly, and won't work unless I sink $40.00 in modding this thing. I even tried to get the parts in my local Lowes and it still isn't something I want in my case. Not to mention it won't fit! What do I mean by all this? Next time you give a noob advice PLEASE let him know if what you say to buy is ghetto or good. I am sorry if this insults anyone but this would have saved me money in the long run. Now I'm off to sink another 30.00 in buying another radiator for my setup. Again I'm sorry if this is the wrong thing to say to people that tried to help but PLEASE don't just say "Buy this!" unless you explain what type of item it is.

[Rocko[DPC]]

Why didnt you ask the people who told you to buy it what type of item it is?

I dont what youre talking about modding the thing. What specifically is wrong with it? If youre only complaining because its 'ugly' you can always spray paint it.

[TyRex]

thats the exact same one I bought for 21 bucks from AdavancedAuto.............after some modifications......it now looks like this.....

http://www.imagestation.com/picture/sraid46/p00f67a4c4eb22f8efd5f7a8328172f93/fccfe781.jpg

http://www.imagestation.com/picture/sraid46/p18ad5787729bef299453b57bd2224d29/fccfe786.jpg

try polishing it up and/or adding a shroud to it.....or even paint it.;)

[wannaoc]

Please look at the pic listed for what I'm talking about Rocko. And notice one thing about your case TyRex your water cooling setup takes up half of a full tower, not everyone has one. Also with the 27.00 I paid for the unfinished one I could have put up another 10.00 or so and had a full ready-to-use radiator.

[Caeberos]

Adding barbs is really easy, all I used was a hack saw and some jb-weld. As long as you are willing to do some work with this, it should perform way better than most other rads.

You can always make your setup like dodgevipers, as long as you've got the tools for it (drill, solder, torch, dremel) with those tools you can make it look really good. But if you are like me, all you got is the basics, jb-weld works great!

Good Luck

:edit:

When I say like DodgeViper i mean the orientation of the rad

[wannaoc]

Caeberos please explain your hacksaw/jb-weld proccess. I am all for saving this thing as I already paid for it.

[Caeberos]

Well depending on the size of the inlet and outlet you should get some hosebarbs, the most popular being 1/2 brb 1/2fpt (if this makes no sense tell me).

Then use a hack saw to cutoff the portions of the inlet and outlet tubing that you don't need (Those tubes are huge, cut them down to whatever size you want)

Finally just get some j-b wled (or j-b weld quick, sets in 4 mins, I quickly found out i didn't need 10 hours :rolleyes: ) and put some one the inside of the barb before putting it on the rad, then add some to seal the barb to the rad. Worked pretty well for me.

And then do wetwilly's fanshroud project :D

Good Luck

:edit:

get a hose barb that has a 1/2" barb connection and a 1/2" female thread connection on the other end. I am sure I wrote that wrong earlier

[wormwood]

The photo looks more like a 1977 Ford F100 Truck core, about $18 from your local autozone.

A little JB Weld and some barbs, you'll be good to go. You can even use the Glad-ware shroud trick.

Anything looks better black. Get "epoxy" black spray paint from your hardware store. Sand your core (after adding barbs), pressure test it (or at least leak test it), and then paint it. It'll look fantastic.

The core you have is functionally identical to the infamous Chevette core, but has weird pipe placement and I'm almost certain the lower tank is smaller so it's easier to fit places. It's a nice core (I have one as well that I'm putting into service). The active cooling area is roughly identical to the Chevette.

JB Weld is a blast to work with. Cut off the pipes, sand any area your going to apply JB Weld to with rough sand paper, apply the JB Weld, and then wait (preferably overnight). It'll be solid, so as long as you apply it evenly, you'll be good to go.

Practice first with a few things if you like. Once you get good, it'll be indistinguishable from solder, without the toasted fingers...

[Cutter]

You could always do what I am doing and make a cooling station totally seperate form your pc. Get all your parts rad ,fan ,pump and resevoir and and put them in some sort of cool looking box, then just run coolings lines form it to ur PC's WB. store it under ur desk where it will be hidden, or if you make the box look cool, "like totally rticked out man" you can show it off as well as ur pc case and system

[Rocko[DPC]]

You shouldnt even need to get barbs. Are you doing 1/2" hosing? I'm guessing the heatercores inlets outlets are 5/8ths which is pretty standard. If not, what are they? I put 1/2" ID hosing over 3/4" ID fittings. Its just a matter of putting some soap on the hosing and forcing the hell out of it.

As far as looking at the picture, I have no clue what you mean. I see a heatercore... I dont know what you think is wrong with it to be honest.

[ThePyro]

All of the postings in this thread are good suggestions, and I would say to try and use the heater core if you can. However, if worst comes to worst, you can always pick up one of the d-tek heatercore/shroud combos (available here (http://http://www.cooltechnica.com/Merchant2/merchant.mvc?Screen=PROD&Store_Code=C&Product_Code=Dtek-ProCore_Combo&Category_Code=D-Tek) for about 55 bucks). It's definitly more expensive, but they work just as well as the chevette heater cores, come pre-painted, and are all ready to be hooked up to your wc system. Just a thought.

[TyRex]

Originally posted by wannaoc
Please look at the pic listed for what I'm talking about Rocko. And notice one thing about your case TyRex your water cooling setup takes up half of a full tower, not everyone has one. Also with the 27.00 I paid for the unfinished one I could have put up another 10.00 or so and had a full ready-to-use radiator.

I'm using dual 1 3/4" shrouds and 2 38 mm thick fans. you could greatly reduce the size by only using 1 fan and 1 thinner shroud. I used all that space because it was there, had I not had it........I would've only used 1 fan and 1 shroud

[JML]

I don't see the problem with it. Make a shroud for it (there's enough guides on how to do it, use the search function), put the correct fittings on it, paint the heater core and shroud, there ya go! Looks purty when you have the end product

[SiliconX]

If you're not happy with it, then return it

[JaY_III]

live on the west cost?
i'll take it off your hands if you dont want it.
that is probly the best RAD you will be able to get.

@DodgeViper, i like what you did thier. VERY SMART. I am guessing the other side of your case is cut open right? No heat going back into the case....... Looks really smart. Oh and what block do you have for that setup BTW?