My heater core started leaking last week, to the point that the windshield got fogged (and man, that mess is hard to clean up!) So, a heater core replacement was in my future.

The last one I did was in our family car, a Crown Vic. You literally have to remove the entire dash, steering column and all! It took me three weeks and Lord only knows how many bandaids.

I did some research on the forum (the search function works!) and most posts said the job wasn't too bad. So, this weekend I started tackling the job, and all the posts were right on the money. I took my time and the job still only took a few hours (probably as much time spent in research as wrenching).

Sorry I don't have any pics, but my camera decided to die on me this week as well. Here's what you have to do:

1. Remove the glove box
2. Remove the lower plastic panel that's below the glove box
3. You'll now see the plastic air plenum directly behind the glove box area. On the lower right side of this plenum is a small relay-looking box. Use a flat blade screwdriver and gently pop this box out of its holder.
4. On the left side of the plenum you'll see 2 small screws (7 mm hex heads). Remove these and the plenum will pull forward slightly and drop straight down. Now you can see the heater core clearly.
5. The heater core has a spring clamp on the left side, held in place with another 7 mm head screw. Remove this.

Now, on to the firewall side:

6. Remove the two heater hoses. You might get a bit of coolant spillage here, but this is about the highest point of the system, so it shouldn't be much.
7. There is a clamp securing the two tubes of the heater core, held in place by yet another 7mm head screw. This screw is hard to get to, but not extreme.

Once the tubes are free, wiggle them to make sure, then it's back into the passenger footwell.

This next part just takes some patience. To get started removing the heater core, pull it straight out until it loosens up, then carefully work it out of the plenum, then angling and rotating the core around, down, sideways, as necessary until it comes out the bottom. The reason you're careful at this point is to figure out how the new one goes back in.

Once you've wiggled, tugged, turned, etc. and the old one is out, then check the foam air gap seals: mine were either hard as a rock or turned to dust when I touched them. I put a few layers of 1/8 inch weatherstripping on the sides of the new core and a strip along the bottom.

And then the famous words: "Assembly is the reverse of removal"

Once everything was buttoned back up top off your radiator (it's probably down some since you had a leak in the first place, right?), start 'er up and get everything up to temp, and bleed the system.

Then you should be good to go!

HTH, and have a good one,
Mike

 

Sounds pretty easy. Thanks for the post, I may be doing this soon.

 

Me too.