Well I've gotten over the shock and irritation of facing a heater core replacement on my 97 F-150. A couple of rookie questions before I start gathering the parts and motivation to do this. My truck instantly started blowing the anti-freeze odor through the A/C ducts about 3 or 4 weeks ago. The smell is nowhere else. If I turn the A/C off, no odor. The floorboard is dry. I've lost about an inch of coolant out of the bowl in 3 weeks time. So, considering the A/C evaporator is beside it, does that pretty much confirm that my heater core is the culprit? And is that box that surrounds it water tight, hooked to a drain hose, or will the antifreeze eventually spill over into the floorboard before I get this done, etc.?

By the way, I've read the 20-plus pages of instructions which are excellent. This 3-part youtube video looks good also.

F150 Heater Core part 1 - YouTube

 

No answer at all?

 

Stop using the vehicle immediately. It is the heater core. The dash must come out and the HVAC box can then be accessed through a panel on the top that is held in by several screws. Drain the cooling system first. If you want, you could drill a small hole in the lowest part of that heater box and catch the overflow with a pan or bucket and fill it latter with some black silicone or suction it out once you get the access panel off the top. You must get the correct kind of foam gasket material from the Ford dealer to place around the new HC while installing it. Its purpose is to seal both sides of the Plenum against leaks and also prevent vibration from cracking the HC assembly. Make sure you disconnect the gear shift cable under the steering column or it will brake when dropping the steering column.

Get you self a box of "Ziplock" sandwich bags to put all the different screws in and mark each one. There are a lot of them. I also marked each bolt and screw head with a white parts marker so if I ever had to pull it apart again I could see everyone that needs to come out. You can save some time by pivoting the dash out and resting the passenger side on the passenger side bench seat. The whole thing needs to come straight out a little ways and then you can pivot it out instead of pulling apart the wiring harness like the instructions say. This will save time and grief.

I used the brass copper type instead of the aluminum one because it's not as prone to deterioration due to electrolysis as the aluminum one is. I also grounded the new HC with a ground strap right to the body under the dash.Be careful with all the plastic parts and take digital close up pictures, they will help latter if you can't remember where something goes. While your in there, it would be very wise to replace the "blend door" because if it goes in the future like many do you'll of saved your self the pain of removing the whole dash again. Check the local Ford dealer for the blend door and a new foam seal for the HC.

This guy has some great pictures of the job. (Page 2)
Fordbest98 Gallery - Ford F150 Photos
Lower section shaft, s... User: Fordbest98. Views: 400. Rating: None. Date: 2011- 4-11. Comments: No comments. FH000016.JPG · New bearing, etc. User ...
www.fordf150.net/photos/u80691-Fordbest98.html


Any more questions, I'd be glad to help.

 

Those Youtube vids are very informative and helpful- probably the best how to for HC's

 

Very good video series. Not a quick and simple job.

I'm gonna change anti freeze in my pick up THIS WEEKEND!

 

What's the question (?), or do you always copy and paste other users posts?

 

I read somewhere (on here IIRC) that you can do it by just removing the glove box, and then cutting an access panel in the heater box with a dremel tool. To reassemble put the cut out piece back in place and seal with the real aluminum duct tape. not sure how easy etc. as I havent done it, but said to save several hours, and a headache... might be worth looking into

 

BFTUFF, user "KarenLilels" is a spammer. Their game is to create user log-in, then go across many forums here on FTE, and add a reply. The reply is a copy and paste of something another user said earlier in the thread. And to that the spammer appends a website URL, hoping that people here will think that URL has something to do with the topic. If a user clicks on the link, then the spammer succeeded in generating traffic for some website that they get paid pennies for. Multiply it across the web, and they think they can make some $. The slime!

If you or anyone else here see an "answer" on a thread that looks suspicious, seems out of place in the context, click on their username. You can see when they registered. If it was that day or a day before, click on Statistics and the other tabs to see all the posts they made. A spammer's posts will all line up across multiple forums, one line answers with a URL attached, sometimes as a picture that won't work.

Then please go back to the original thread, and mark that spammer's "reply" for a Moderator, and fill in "Spammer across multiple forums" in the alert comments. A Mod will usually look at it, and delete all the replies and the spammer's log-in. Mods are kept busy due to crap like this, but the only way to fight it is to find it and kill it quick.
In the case of spammer "KarenLiliels", only the added links were deleted.

And now back to heater cores...

 

Tell me more about this. And please don't let this be one of those "too good to be true" things. I am NOT looking forward to completely removing the dash of my truck. But I guess I will be doing that joyous task very soon unless this truly is a viable short-cut.

 

Bubble burst time?

IIRC, that was a procedure to replace the Blend Door, without taking it all apart. The procedure is here somewhere. Search blend door and aluminum tape, or something like that?

I'd like to be remembering wrongly, but... ?

 

You're correct about the blend air door replacement, it's called a heater treater. You can find a video about it on Youtube.

 

why wont it work for the HC? you need to remove the door to get to it... if it wont, sorry I got your hopes up.

 

There are some very good instructions found here that I used and it worked out great. It is not that bad of a job. I hope it is all right putting this link in. The instructions are in Word format.

http://my.voyager.net/~sscully/F-150...50_Exp_002.doc

This is basically the same writeup with some added pictures and comments.
http://nator.net/files/Heater%20Core%20Replacement.doc

Ron

 

Thanks, that's good info. Wish the web-master could weed these things out some how?

 

That "heater treater" is kin to a butcher job on your truck. I don't advise it. That's like asking a friend to do heart surgery on you with some ether, a pair of scissors, and some fishing line.