After not having any or very little heat in my 97 Dakota for the last 3 years I finally changed out the heater core. Last year was really cold here and I froze my nads off. Just a pain having to pull the dash to get the box out. Actually went pretty good. Took me 7 hours and everything worked when I was finished. I'm driving over the mountains tomorrow to Denver and will be really nice to have heat and defrosters.

I didn't have any help so I just flipped the dash up onto the seats.

Good deal Mark....

Oh man...that was a job and a half! Glad to hear everything worked when you were done. The moment of anticipation always get me when it's time to test everything!

Lots of fun, huh? I had to work solo when I changed the evaporator core in my 98. I used some 550 cord to tether the dash to the entry assist handle on the a-pillar and snaked my way between the dash and the HVAC box. It was a little claustrophobic, but it worked. I made a trip to Tennessee in my old Mustang with no heat, and my feet went numb. I thought it was the heater valve, but the wire was just really stiff so it wouldn't work. PB Blaster freed it up.

That's something I'm not looking forward to, I'm getting hints of antifreeze small inside the cab every so often on my 93 Dakota. Still puts out good heat, and I'm not loosing any antifreeze at this point, so I'm going to wait it out, and feed it stop leak when I need to. The truck seldom leaves town and seldom runs long enough for the temp to reach operating temp. Gene

I just spent 2 days on mine, pulled the entire thing out and disassembled it all and cleaned everything up, new foam, added some stick on sound dedener under the cheap plastic dash, to the air box and on the air ducts, sealed the box up real tight, KY jelly on all the hinges, opened the box up and washed out the dust, dog hair, cigarette ashes, WD40 down the temperature cable tube, pulled the column apart cleaned out the dust bunnies, new core and evaporator... rebuilt the ENTIRE interior basically, got carried away put in new speakers/CD player, new plastic sheets behind the door panels and some extra sound mat in there on the sheet metal and on the back of the door panel itself, around the shifters in the floor I stuffed a bunch of fluffy stuff from an old jacket. Cab is reeeeely quiet now and the stereo sounds awesome, truck feels like it was actually quality made.

the complete dash doesnt have to come out on a 93 dakota,the bottom half unbolts on the passenger side,but you still have to discharge the ac and pull the complete heater/ac box

" getting hints of antifreeze small inside the cab every so often on my 93 Dakota. Still puts out good heat, and I'm not loosing any antifreeze at this point, so I'm going to wait it out, and feed it stop leak when I need to. "

My sons friend has a 98 ram and has been smelling hints of antifreeze for the last year, he used a radiator stop leak which made the anti freeze smell go away according to him. This young man has been fealing a little sick here and there for the last few months and is a Commercial driver so employer sent him in for through testing and his kidneys were starting to show signs of imbalance, his driving has been suspended and he is getting better the heater core is fixed and the thought is he was in his personal pickup truck long enough over the last year getting the AntiFreeze misting Doctor thinks that it was the reason.

Might not want to wait too long on the repair!

Poorboy, the dakotas on up to 96 before they went to the new bodystyle were changed this way.