How do I disconnect the two heater cables from the heater box on a 65 Dart?

[crashcaptn]

Hi All - My heater core went out almost a year ago.. i'm finally deciding to do something about it. My goal at the end will be to completely rebuild the box with new foam, paint it, new core, and reinstall. Hopefully going to photograph the entire process and do a write up because I can't seem to find one anywhere and I feel thats valuable.

I'm inspecting everything before pulling the heater box out and I wanted to know from people with experience how to go about disconnecting the two heater control cables from the heater box "Z bar" as I'm calling it:

The above picture shows how the cable wraps around this "Z bar" (in this case to control the amount of heat entering the car). The top of the rod has some sort of crimped cap and then it SEEMS like the cable is wrapped around the rod a few times. The other "Z bar" (the selector between heat and defrost) has what appears to be the same:

.

It's understandably difficult to get in there and see.. so I wanted to ask the community before destroying a part I can't exactly just go and purchase when i DO break it. Could someone let me know how they go about disconnecting the two cables away from the heater box for uninstall?

Thanks in advance.

 

[MidnightSwinger]

You can just pull them off with your fingers.

 

[RustyRatRod]

You can just pull them off with your fingers.

Chit. You must have some ogre frankenstein supernatural fingers. I always have to use pliers.

 

[MidnightSwinger]

Chit. You must have some ogre frankenstein supernatural fingers. I always have to use pliers.

I have been called all of those things before.

 

[Dana67Dart]

The "cap" (red) is refered to a speed nut. Available at Tru Value and probably on Amazon.

To remove you can TRY to pry it off but it would be less potentially destructive to use side cutters to snip the speed nut.

The "wire wrapped" around the "z bar"will just slip off.


The clamp (green) will pop off, some have a screw remove that first.

You might want to mark or measure the distance each cable is inserted and clamped. It sets the travel on the control.