Heater Core

Hi there has been a post about this before and as I remember the whole of the dash must be removed, if you can find the post I think there were pics of the job.

Had a small leak on mine and sorted it with 2 bottles of radiator sealant.
It was only a slight leak tho, good luck, Mark

Shortly after I bought my car (and while it still had the previous owner's BMW warranty) I took it in to BMW with the same problem: antifreeze smell when turning on the heater.
They pressure tested the system for several hours and found no leak.
They also did an aircon test at my request and found a tiny refrigerant leak from the aircon evaporator (next to the heater core in the dash) and so removed the entire dash to fix it - saw it stripped - major, major job.
They double-checked the heater at the same time, but nothing was leaking.
Still smells when turned on, then fades.
So, same symptoms as above, but no leak........mystery!

Some one on Roadfly did it without stripping the dash.
Search there for Heater core--plan an spending a bit of time.
http://bimmer.roadfly.com/bmw/forums/e31/search.php

And this from http://www.e31faq.com http://www.e31faq.com/attachments/att122.pdf

I Just did one on mine, and the dash board is not that hard to take out and put back, Make sure you remove every section gently and not to brake any parts. The window pillers are very easy to snap the top clips on.

not sure if you did the heater core replacement yet but I did mine by only removing the center console. I mean the whole center console which required removing the backseats, but it's easier than pulling the dash. directly behind the stereo there is a plastic curtain, if you will and then inside then black plastic box behind that is your heater core. If I had to do one again I could do it in 2-3 hours. Not really that hard at all.

Jaguar,
Is there any update on the core replacement? It would be nice to browse those pics, as I will have to get around to it some time too i guess. Hope it went well, or is going ok..

Matt