Hey guys, new member here!!

Well, I have a 2001 Ford F150 XL V6 fleet truck.

Couple weeks ago I could smell antifreeze. Last week it started blowing smoke/mist/condensate/whatever in my face. Late last week I saw green fluid on the floor of the passenger side.

I bought the heater core for 42 dollars at autozone and started tearing her apart. WHAT HAVE I GOTTEN MYSELF INTO!!! I started doing it myself because pepboys quoted 600 dollars. I'm not mr money bags so I started taking the job on myself. It's just me, I did the ball joints and upper arms 3 weekends ago to save money.

Anyways, there's a **** load of panels to remove and I'm regretting it already.

I'm using the Haynes manual. I've taken off numerous panels so far (almost all I think besides the last one). The last one concerns me because I'm supposed to remove the air bag module but the Haynes doesn't really explain how to do that. Not to mention that this final panel is by far the largest and appears to be behind the a/c controls as well. Am I supposed to remove the a/c controls?

I wish there was an easier way without having to remove this final panel. Looking at the haynes, it says once this last panel is removed I should be able to access the heater core. Looking at the truck, it appears the heater core is in some sort of box, do I remove the whole box or do I just remove the top half or something? The haynes manual doesn't explain that very well either. Anyways, sorry for the long post, if you feel like contributing to my money saving cause, please do so. Thanks to all for reading.

 

Right there with you man I am about to start tearing my dash apart next week before it gets cold.:cens ored:

 

Yea, luckily, between my fiance and I, we have 3 cars (her chevy cavalier-, her chevy blazer-, and my truck -) so we are always able to make it to work which helps since I knew this job would be time consuming to say the least....

 

well dont know how close my 97 f-150 is to yours but if it has passenger side air bag you have to take out that big oval panel in the top of dash, then you can get to the bolts that hold in air bag, as long as your battery is unhooked you can safely unplug air bag, and yes you only have to take off the top of the box. hope this helps!

 

just take every panel off till u can plainly see the black box the heater core in. it took me about 8 hours to change my heater core

 

and treat the airbag like its dynamite lol i turned it off unhooked the battery and pulled the relay

 

Well, I figured out how to get the airbag out. Now it looks like all that's left is the main panel. Still trying to figure out where all it is attached at. It looks like the radio and A/C controls are screwed on top of it so I'm trying to figure out if I'm supposed to remove it. The haynes manual doesn't say anything about removing that...

My main fear is getting it all back together when all said and done. I contemplated just putting it back together and taking it to the shop...The main panel looks too complicated to remove.

 

I just finished this project yesterday, and I had to take the the radio and heat/ac controls out as well...but I have a 99 v-8 so I don't know if that makes a differance or not...I do have a question though I put everything back together and my airbag light is on now...do I or how do I reset that??

 

if the indicator light for _passenger_ airbag (center dash, below radio) burns out, is broken or disconnected, the computers sets the airbag indicator in the driver's side instrumentation cluster.

Did you disassemble the dash and forget to reconnect the passenger side airbag indicator?

Happened to me when i changed the heater core on my '99.
Had to reconnect it.

I ran for a long time with passenger airbag turned off with my kid in the truck. The lamp did finally burned out & it cost under $2 for light bulb at radio shack. i soldered in the replacment myself.