Finally! I got my heater core done!!! I still have to put the glove box and the rest of the center console together so for now I tell people its the Comp Prep option, lol. Took a long time and was a pain since I had no idea what I was doing, but I do now, and I won't be a-skurred to do it again when the core goes bad again.
I wish I would have bought white face gauges before hand 'cause it would have been easy to do with the gauge cluster completely disconnected...oh well.

 

I need to do a heater core as well.
In the mean time I put a couple of cut off valves on the heater hose's.

So how long did it take? and was there anything I should watch for
I know in the book it says you must remove the consoul as well?.

Plus I have notice a big price variance for the part called heatercores?

 

It took a long time. I started last Saturday mid-afternoon and didn't get done till Thursday but I wasn't working on it that whole time...work 10 hours a day, grandfather broke his ribs, then my dad got a blood cot in his lung, and other stuff came first. So make sure you have an extra car and a full weekend to do it.

I kept having problems with stripped screws and such, thats what took a lot of time....trying to find them all first, and then trying to get them out. Be very careful taking your instrument panel and switches out, I broke a tab on my defroster/hazard switch so now it doesn't quite seat correctly. I also replaced some of the bulbs in back of the the instrument panel (theres 16 total!!!) they are part number 194 bulbs if you plan to do that.

I read at some webpages that they DIDN'T have to disconnect the A/C lines but I couldn't get the heater case pulled back far enough to work with it so I had disconnect them. I'm getting my refrigerant license though so I can buy more R12 once I sell some organs to afford it lol.

I read on several webpages, that once you get the old core out, it is critical that you scrape away all the old black sealant (called dumb gum) from inside the heater box and lay a new bead of sealant (I used Permatex RTV silicone). I don't think they said WHY you must do this, but I guess the old stuff gets to hard to properly seat the new core and that causes it to leak or something (not sure).

BE VERY CAREFUL HANDLING THE NEW HEATER CORE
Don't push hard on it, don't pull hard, and be sure as heck not to tug on the outlets to get it through the grommet and firewall.
Just be very paitient installing the new core in the heater box.

You do have to take the center console out to get the dash forward. <The armrest is freaking heavy.> Some guys can do everything with just pulling the dash forward a few inches, (still have to take the console out) but I took the whole dash out cause I got big hands and I like to see what I'm doing. I also lowered the steering wheel and it was STILL in the way.

I bought my core at Advanced Auto for 18 bucks, but I get a small discount so normal price was probably like 20. It is Ready-Aire brand I think, and is made in Mexico. The 35 dollar ones 5.0 resto sells are made in the USA, and when I have to do this again, I'll buy one of those.

One last note- A lot of guys said they put an inlet restrictor in the intake tube of the core and that is critical to make the core last longer. I guess the coolant flows to hard for the core to handle or something....I did not put one in because I was 18 miles away from the nearest parts store and didn't know how to make one anway.