Replacing my Heater Matrix

Hello all. Just felt I had to post up this picture of my mrs MK1 Punto (can you imagine the look on her face!) I am in the middle of replacing the silly little heater rad (Matrix) but look at the obliteration just to get to the bloody thing! (thanks Fiat for making it so difficult to replace!)

Its been a pig of a job getting the dashboard out - mainly disconnecting all the wires have been a pain.

What is the chances of getting everything all back in its correct place do ye reckon. And all this cause I ain't gonna give a garage hundreds of euro's to replace the heater matrix - I says to the wife 'I should be able to do it myself love! and save some money' - ever wished you had never started a job!

I wonder how many screws and everything I have left over after putting everything back, I will just have to hope there is a bin near buy to chuck them!

Anyway here is photographic evidence for anyone who wants to replace their own Punto Mk1 heater rad in their car :-)

at least its not an sx elx, theres a lot more wires in them

i dont rtemember having to remove the fuse box

That bit of metal thats sticking out where the steering wheel attaches to that looks like it could be dangerous in a head on crash that would go straight into your chest or then again I suppose the column steering rod could go into you as well - makes me shiver just thinking about it.....

I didn't take my steering wheel off in the end cause i didn't have a big enough socket handy for the centre nut but I did take the airbag assembly out the middle of the steering wheel and unplugged the connector to it.

All was done with the battery disconnected so do you reckon I might get away without the airbag light having to be reset / extinguished in the end?

dont worry its all made to fold up out the way in a crash

air bag light shouldnt come on

Thanks for putting my mind at rest its good to know

Thanks thats what I was thinkin'

ive got to rip my dash apart coz my f****n heater matrix has gone and p****d water in my car so ive just bypassed it till the winter

Well good luck to you and I sympathise if your gonna attack it yerself. All i can say is that if I did have the finances to let a Fiat Dealer or Garage do the job then I would have gladly let them do it but when I heard it was going to cost around 250 Euro (I think they quoted it was) and for it to be in the workshop for days maybe weeks i decided to do it myself at home.

The only other benefit I can see is that at least if I do the job myself I can make sure that I make a good job of putting everything back together properly (or maybe not as the case may be!) but then if I put it back wrong and there is a problem then the only person I can get angry with is meself

why would they need it for weeks? i can do one in 5 hours with tea and lunch, fiat techs on here have done so many they can do them in 3 hours

Our one didn't get to the stage of leaking all over the carpet thankfully but there was a horrible sweet smelling fishy smell when you turned the heater control to hot setting. After getting out the matrix I can see where it had been leaking but no water on the carpet and no water going down in the expansion tank bottle either - very strange.

maybe it not being a bad leak maybe I could have tried some more radweld but I have decided now that the matrix is finally out I am gonna stop mucking about and replace it with a new one and the good thing is that the geezer who sold my wife the car used said that he would pay for a new matrix if I was going to fit it myself. He wasn't too keen on stripping down the dashboard even himself and doing the job.

I reckon Fiat should have 'split' the Dashboard in half to make it easier to take out the heater unit and the matrix or maybe have designed it so that you can remove the heater matrix from the engine compartment because this is quite a frequent thing these heater rads failing in Punto's so i hear.

Some people put it down to inferior or unchanged anti-freeze used in the past when servicing and some others blame it on the material and metal used in the heater rad but I don't know what it is but its a pain to replace I must say.

Its a Fiat garage in the west of Ireland - everything is at a slower pace here including getting yer car fixed.

If there are no funeral or weddings the mechanics have to attend or if all the mechanics are in and not on a sickie then maybe the job could get done in a week. No one rushes themselves here like they do in the UK.

Lack of cooling system maintenance is often to blame, as coolant/ anti-freeze contains corrosion inhibiting properties that lose effeciency over time. If the coolant isn't changed regularly (normally 2 years as recommended in service books) the heater matrix, which is made of rather thin aluminium, can corrode from the inside out leak.

Service the cooling system/ change the coolant regularly and the corrosion is far less likely to happen

Oh, and if you think changing the matrix in a Punto is bad try doing it on a Peugeot 309. Me and a mate had to do one and it took two and a half days. Even the wiper motor had to come out to get to it

Not like the days of the Ford Cortina where the matrix could be changed in about ten minutes...