I ran into the same problem. After much cursing and weighing my options, I did the following. I cut one of the tubes. Then I bought a copper coupler from Grainger and JB Welded the coupler to the portion of the tube that was still on the heater core. Then I installed the heater case / core to the firewall. Finally, from the engine side I JB Welded the previously cut tube to the coupler being careful to try and maintain the original angle. Hopefully, the pics will help explain. Oh, I also added some JB Weld to the solder area where the tubes connect to the core. This was the weak link in my original core. [url=[URL=http://s1273.photobucket.com/user/mgoblue83/media/06Nov2013120_zps942b8367.jpg.html][/url]][/url] [url=[URL=http://s1273.photobucket.com/user/mgoblue83/media/06Nov2013117_zps8b7e6b1b.jpg.html][/url]][/url]