Hi, 2 weeks ago halfway home on a 3 hour trip the windshield steamed up and I smelled anti-freeze. After 10 minutes it went away and I made it home fine. I checked the reservoir and only had to add an inch of juice. I drove it for nearly 2 weeks and then it did it again. No wet carpet on the passenger floor. I ordered a heater core. But I am confused by a lot of the videos out there for replacing it. Most talk about the heater core AND the AC evaporator and require disassembling the whole dash. Google found me this: https://www.ford-trucks.com/how-tos/...er-core-356123 which says "This article applies to the Ford F-150 (2004-2014)." And it says you can replace the heater core through the glove box opening. Also the pas couple of months I have had the clicking from the passenger side dash which I assume is the blend door. In the article it describes the blend door actuator has to be removed right above the heater core. Is the clicking from the actuator or the door assembly itself? I did find this on another forum: "To re-calibrate the heater module You will first need to turn on the ignition, press the AUTO button, then turn the ignition back off. Then remove the HVAC fuse for at least 60 seconds. When turning the ignition on again, the system will relearn all of the blend door positions."

My heater core came in today. I was thinking of buying the blend door actuator for $23 and putting that in new and trying the re-calibration sequence. Does anyone see a problem with this approach? Am I really going to be able to replace the heater core through the glovebox opening? I would like to do it saturday morning.

Thanks,
Greg

 

Unfortunately no you can't get to it thru the glove box, The entire a/c evaporator/heater core plenum must be removed. The only way to do that is to take the dash out 1st. Older Ford F 150's had a panel you could pop out behind the glove box and slide the heater core out but not 09-14.

 

It was a 30-45 minute job on my old '88 F-150. I can't even imagine what Ford bills out for hours needed for this job now on a newer truck. I do know that if I were going to have it done or DIY it, I'd replace every darned blend door actuator as well as any other failure prone items in there.

Then again, I'd be just as temped to walk away from a 12 year old truck instead of spending the money on it. I can't imagine any shop tackling this job for less than $1500 -$2000.