If there is no odor, and you are using antifreeze, then i would suspect that the drain line for the air conditioning condensate is blocked. Run the AC and look to see if there is water dripping on the ground kr out of the drain hose. If not, try gently forcing air into the drainline to clear the line.

 

It could just be AC dripping back on the drain tube and into the cab around the seal. We have seen this often and we just add a rubber drain tube to the plastic one at the firewall to direct the water away from the firewall. You could alternatively seal it completely around the tube and the rubber seal area with urethane sealant or a good silicone if you let it get good and dry first.

 

its a pain in the ***, but i was 16 and did it in 2 days, so its not THAT bad. again, i just pulled the dash forward and did it.

and to whoever said the quick release clips come off easy is crazy. mine didnt come off. i ended up cutting the hose and then clamping them back on.

 

Strongly agree and well said! I had the pull my 98' F150 dash to replace the broken blend door and while I was in there I replaced the heater core knowing with 192,000 on it that it may fail at any time. So I did both and saved a ton of cash. I used a brass / copper core instead of the aluminum one the Ford dealer had. I was in the process of buying it and noticed that the new Ford aluminum core was made in Mexico and was so racked that it would have never fit in the HVAC box correctly. I found a brass one at a parts store, besides, I've read that the brass ones are less susceptible to pitting due to electrolysis. I then use a ground strap to additionally ground the heater core against this form or corrosion. The same thing happened to my 85 T-bird, I had to replace it three times.

Why the engineers can't make these cores easily accessible is a mystery? They also should have put in standard cabin air filters as well!

 

!st post on this forum , some very useful info here .

so i think i have the same problem , the other day I notices a nasty smell coming from the vents . smells like radiator coolant .
I was hoping it might just be the air conditioner drain hose but with the smell i think it is the heater core .
My truck is a 2000 ranger , does anyone have any tips on this particular model i should be aware of b4 tackling this project ?
I have downloaded the instructions from this thread , and they are better than the haynes manual I have . Thanks to the original poster of them .

I am going to try putting some stop leak in the truck tonight which i hope will hold me until the long weekend 3 weeks from now which is the only time i will have to fix it . Napa and car quest had the part for $67 CDN , half the price of my local ford dealer , they wanted $113cdn .
if that does not hold , I will try a by pass , the guy at napa said that i should not have to cut any hoses , just get a plastic coupling to clip the 2 pieces to .

Hopefully the mechanic in a can will hold for a few weeks , and i will replace the coolent when i do the repair , it is over do to be replaced anyway .

I am a novice with mechanical work , i have managed to do some repairs , and i think i can do this . what I do know is there is no way I am spending $900 to have someone else fix a $67 part , so i will just have to learn .

any advice / tips would be appreciated .
thanks

 

There is DiY all across internet. One guy show just about every bolt. Print out it and do. Time consuming but not specially tricky.

 

I have my dash apart right now to fix the blend door...going to go ahead and replace heater core too while Im in there....It's not leaking but I know if I dont do it now, I will end up pulling the dash again soon (just my luck)

 

just to follow up . i did the repair a couple weekends ago . The prestone stop leak temporarily fixed the leak for a week until i could get to the repair.

on the 2000 ranger , automatic , the dash comes off very easily , I was able to disconnect it and shift it back out of the way in about 45min . This was the easiest part of the job , like others have said , have some zip lock baggies handy and label the bolts and screws in the order they came off . I also put a sticker on the dash with a number to remind me exactly where the bolt came from .

Keep you Haynes manual handy , you never know when you will run out of toilet paper and you can use the manual for TP in a pinch . For this project on this year / model of truck it is completely worthless . look online in forums and watch the you tube videos that are out there , they are very helpful . the Haynes manuals instructions were to remove the dash , then remove the Heater phellem( housing) . it doesn't tell you how to remove them or where the bolts are just to remove them .

removing the dash went smoothly , but once i got to the black plastic heater housing things bogged down . one of the bolts holding it to the fire wall was rusted solid and i could not get it off . there is a plastic heat sheild on top of the pipes that go through the firewall , this is held in place by 5 bolts/screws . 3 of which are easily accessable , one of which is hard to get at but with patience and a flexable shaft on your screw driver you can get at eventualy , the last bold is impossable to get to . it is in the hole where the pipes go through the fire wall , there was no way i could get a screw driver in to loosen it . I ended up pulling hard enough on the plastic piece to break it free .

getting to all the bolts and screws that hold the black plastic thing in place was impossible . I ended up having to cut the plastic heater core housing . I wish i had planned to do this from the start as it would have made life easier . I did not have my dremmel and made a bit of a hatchet job of it . once i cut the hole things went fairly smoothly . there is a plastic brace/support that holds the core in place , i had to cut part of this to free it up but it did not affect how well it holds the core . the cutting took about 45 min , and changing the core was easy about 15 min . putting the dash back together took another 45 min . all told it would have taken about 2 1/2 to 3 hours if I had just planned to cut the heater core housing from the get go and i would have had the right tool to do the job . asit was I wasted about 4 hours trying to figure out how to get to bolts that i could not get to .

I sealed the cuts in the exterior of the heater core housing with duct tape , again if i had planned to cut the housing from the get go i could have made a nice plastic strip to cover the cut lines and make access in the future easy . either way , you can't see the duct tape accept for one piece on the bottom of the housing . it is after all a 12 year old truck , so I am not going to worry about it .

the repair worked , the heater heats the truck and i saved $800 .
any way that was my experience hope it is of some use to someone in the future , thanks to those who have added to this thread , the info in it was very helpful , and I appreciated the help .