If anyone ever tells you that a heater core is easy to replace, they LIE!












More Pics here http://s673.photobucket.com/albums/v...3/Rides/Dodge/

This truck could not go up for sale untill the leaky heater core and the cracked dash got replaced. Seems everyone with a 2000-2001 has dash problems. I found the old dash quite brittle and broke apart with little effort. A bad batch of plastic I'm sure.

What a pain *** that heater core is!!! Holy Crap!
I don't see how it could be done without removing the dash. The AC lines give you just enough room to slide the plentum out and replace the core.
The bone-yard dash came with no wiring harness, but the plastic looks good.

The whole job took me 7hrs including clean-up.

EZ

 

i feel your pain, i did mine at the start of winter and it was down for about a month because i did a little at a time between working and sleeping when it wasn't too cold or raining. good thing i have another vehicle or i would have had to brave the weather and the frozen hands and get it done in a day. i took my steering column out and that made it a lot easier, and i didn't disconnect the ac lines either, i just took the evaporator case loose and pulled the ac lines through the firewall as far as they would go and like you said, getting that heater core out was like trying to squeeze one of our trucks through one of those lazer wash carwashes. total time for me was somewhere between 7 and 10 hours total. i had to take the edges of my original dash and glue them back together so my dash cover would sit at the right height. that thing had the break strength of a dorito, looks good now though, and i have heat without the foggy windows so i can't complain.

 

The cracked dash deal is a crapy thing to do to loyal truck buyers. I can see why a recall would be a big deal. The way the dash comes out of the truck is a pretty slick design, replacing just the top section of plastic would take near complete disassembly of the dash. I suppose after doing a few I could get it down to 4-5 hours with a on-bench replacment, times the 500K trucks on the road with "Dorito Dash" ( I like it :lol ). That's gonna get spendy quick.
At the very least I hope Dodge gave the supplier a good reaming out, was anyone working QC that year?!?


EZ1

 

I'm really surprised that you had that much trouble. I disconnected my steering column connectors and laid it on my drivers seat and slid the dash back a bit to change mine out. It was a pretty tight fit, but I got it out

 

i have a 99 dodge caravan ac not blowing but the fan its working i want to fix it

 

I did mine this past spring. It wasn't all that bad. I didn't have to pull the dash, just dropped the column to the seat and swivelled the dash back. I think I had to disconnect a couple small harnesses. Then I was able to cut the tubs of the old core and pull it out. The new one dropped in fairly easy with just a little pressure on the tubes to get them in the right spot.

 

Part of the idea of pulling the dash/heater box out of the truck to change the core is so you can clean the years of accumulated crap out of it as well.

 

Are you friggin kidding me?

 

Oh, I bet he really does have one.......

 

leaving it ther is like being ready for a treasure hunt! Ugly1 says that is what has preserved his dash!