Anyone have any good tips for heater core replacement on a very basic Dakota? Can I just loosen the dash and pull it away from the firewall enough to remove the top plate of the heater box leaving the box itself still on the firewall or is there little recourse other than just pull all the crap out to work on it? Thanks!

 

What year? I had a '96 and I could have lower the steering column and then loosened the bolts and rotated it towards the seats to get to it. This will work but is rather tight and you deal with a bunch of wiring that gets in the way.

What I did was removed the seats for room to work. Removed the steering column. Then removed the dash assembly. Yes, it took more bolts to get out but I had all sorts of room to work on the heater plenum. The truck had been owned by a HEAVY smoker and I was trying to get the smell out. With everything out, I scrubbed the truck, replaced the headliner and cleaned all the tar and nicotine out of the plenum. There was actually a yellow stream of nicotine rolling out when I took window cleaner to the housing.