heater on nautique leaking!

My nautique has a heater on it and over the summer it was leaking. My guess is becuase i failed to winterize it well enough last winter.. Does anyone know what I need to do to fix it? how much?

It depends on where it's leaking before you can figure out the cost. You can take the core out if that's leaking and get a replacement core at a auto parts store.

all i really know is its leaking to the drivers feet, and its really hot! lol

Core is cracked. It can happen even if you do winterize properly, but it never hurts.

Go under your dash and locate the heater. There will be two hoses coming into it. You need to remove them and plug them up until you can get a new core. That will take care of the leaking, but you won't have a heater.

uhmmm.. when i pulled my heater for replacement.. heatcraft told me to connect the 2 hoses.

Yes, you can either connect the 2 hoses or put AA batteries in the ends and put the hose clamps back on, that's what us hill billys do in our old chevys...

These heaters are definately very weak for how they are used. Two to three years on the heater core is fairly typical.

While the heater is basically the same setup as used in your car, there are two major differences that make a big difference.

1) On a car, the water/antifreeze is recirculated. Fresh water can be very corroisve to copper, but once the water has done its damage it becomes "neutralized" and the corrosion stops. On a boat, you are constanly pumping through water from the lake, and you can't neutralize the lake.

2) On your car, you have a heater control. When you don't want the heat, you turn the control to "cold" and it shuts off the flow of water to the heater.

I don't have any recommendations for the problem of the basic corrosion, but it does seem feasible to put some sort of valve in the line to the heater so you can shut it in August. I would expect that you would at least double the life of the heater core if you weren't circulating water through it even when it is 110 in the shade....

thanks, how much is a new core?

Depends if you can figure out what car heater core you have or if you have to go through heatercraft. The old style two vent heater from heatercraft used a core that was almost identical to the core in a 80's chevy truck or blazer.

Here is the best heater install I have found on the internet. He used ball valves so he could turn the water source off when not in use.

http://www.wakeworld.com/MB/Discus/messages/65921/282619.html

all you have to do is pull the core and take it to a radiator shop and get them to match it up with one from a car or truck. my 2000 super-air came from a ford truck i think. it should cost about $40 . be sure to go to a radiator specific shop , not a chain store with idiots behind the counter.

If you do match it up, let the rest of us know what it matched to. This topic comes up a lot, and most of the time people report that the radiator shop just shrugs and can't do anything for them.

I am sure there are shops with people that can look at the core and say "Yeah, that looks like a heater from a '67 Fairlane". But most shops are staffed with people who have a hard enough time when you give them model, make and year.

my boat is a 2000 sup-air , and the heater has two dryer hoses on it . the replacement core came from a 79 ford LTD. it was made by modine and the part # is 702273 . it was a perfect fit and it only cost $28. hope this helps