I have the heater box out of a 96 Dakota that will be going into a 49 Dodge pickup.

I want to replace the evaporator and the heater core before it goes under the dash. I'm pretty surprised by the range of prices for the evaporators that are available. I have very little experience with AC stuff. Is there a price range, or a brand that is really good, or really bad that i will want to stay away from? Gene

Get the plate and fin. I had a choice between that and the serpentine style on my 96, it is a sloppy loose fit in the HVAC box (end to end) and the lines don't want to connect to it for $#1t. Replaced it just because when my heater core I lew, a "while I'm in there" thing. What a mistake.

Plate and fin is what oem style is, didn't know difference til I had mine apart, but I ordered the new parts ahead of time

Well, I ordered a heater core and an evaporator from Rock Auto. I'll see how I did, suppose to be here tomorrow. Gene

Gotta do the heater core in my 99 Dakota while the weather is still warm, apparently more has to come apart than on my 92 and 96 Dakotas
Takes the same pn core, weird. I just wish there was an easier way, a way that didn't necessitate draining the freon too
Me + underdash work isn't as easy of a combo as it was for me, say, back in the 80s and early 90s
I like the rest of older cars better too

Mine went bad in my 97 Dakota so I bought a 'Four Seasons' brand. I did it all myself and it took quite a while but it blew ice cold after that

Well, my heater core and evaporator came here today from Rock Auto. I bought the 4 seasons evaporator and it looks like the one that is in the heater box now. The heater core looks good too, but the new one is aluminium and the old one was copper/brass. The old one failed because the copper tubes crushed closed when I cut the old hose off of it, it was abnormally soft and very green after I opened the box up.

I got both pieces for $85 shipped to me. Local places wanted $100 for a 4 seasons evaporator with the same part number and another nearly $50 for the heater core. Last fall I put a heater core in my 95 Dakota, the core locally was around $35 and I paid a local guy $100 to install it. The heater core increased in price over $10 in less then a year. The AC didn't work, so I wasn't concerned about that with the 95.

This heater box is going into a truck that currently has nothing inside beyond the firewall, and that firewall was cut out of a Dakota truck. The biggest challenge will be to figure out what I did with the heater box nuts after I took them off. I'm not planning on doing a heater core nor an evaporator in this truck again. If it will needs one in the future, I'm paying someone to do it. Gene