So this winter my heat hadn't been working. Blower motor clearly worked, so I figured I might be having problems with the heater core. Tonight I got down and looked around to see if I could spot any obvious problems, here's what I found. You are looking at the passenger under dash, where the heater hoses pass into the firewall. Forgive the glare.

The two smaller circles are the broken tips of the "Cool - Heat" lever. It is broken in half, so even though the console was set to "Heat" nothing was actually happening at the blower and core. The large circle is the mount for the wire itself. You can see that its bent pretty far out of line. My guess is whatever bent the lever is what broke the cable. Maybe a passenger who put their foot in the wrong spot, or perhaps some cargo.

Anyway, I pulled the lever manually to heat and it seemed to do some good, but it only got a little warmer. Perhaps the heater core needs to be flushed too. Guess I may as well do that Civic blower upgrade while I'm at it!

Anyway.. any of you folks know what I can use to substitute that cable for? I've heard of people using lawn mower cable for similar applications...

Don't know about the lawnmover cable. It might be easier to take a walk around the pick and pull and find something similar to the Z.

The cables often give up because the heater valve is seizing up and the high resistance eventually destroys the mechanical linkage. The heater valve doesn't look like it will last too much longer. If you choose to stay with the Z heater, you can still find NOS units or after market units for the 240Z and the 280ZX on ebay and I think MSA sell them too. The 280Z valve is hard to find these days.

While the heater core is out, you can reverse flush it with a garden hose. If its really blocked, you might need to get it professionally cleaned. The cores hard NLA, so if you need a new core, your only option left might just be the Civic swap.

Chas

Chas

Don't try to improvise on the cable, find a used one or the right one. You will have a hard time making something else work

Just got to work, and the air was blowing hot. Guess that the rest of the system is fine, though that valve is looking pretty tired. I'll try to secure a cable. For now I'll just leave it at "heat". Probably won't need anything else for a while...

Cables- Generic lawn mower cables will work just fine. If you don't like the looks of the spiral wound sheath use the outer sheath from a bicycle brake cable with the inner throttle cable from the lawn mower. The bicycle inner cable is wound and does not push and pull.

Mark in Portland

Awesome, thanks for the info.

Hi,

If your still having a problem sourcing a cable, I suggest you contact this chap:

Cory Hatton <chatton@theafdc.com>

Regards,

George