Chrysler Repair: Heater Core Replacement 1997 Grand Caravan, grand caravan sport, heater core replacement

Question
Hello Roland or any other expert,

Before I begin, I'd like to thank you for offering your expertise to all us interested readers that own autos but wince at paying $95+/hour for something we believe we can do - albeit at a much slower pace!

The issue for me is replacing my heater core on our '97 Grand Caravan Sport, 3.3 V6, A/C (123K miles). The vehicle has no damage and besides losing the tranny at 26K miles, and a couple other minor issues has been a great vehicle.

I've torn the dash off of my Ford Taurus wagon 12 years ago to replace its heater core and it was a knuckle-busting bear of a job - 10 hours flat rate. But I saved a lot of $$ by doing it myself. I'd like to do it again but this time with this forum's help.

Could you (or anyone else) recommend a good repair manual for this job and/or briefly describe here what steps I need to take to do it? By the time you reply I'm guessing I'll be into up to my elbows in this job so any info will be greatly appreciated.

Thanks again!

Neil

Answer
Hi Neil,
I hope that you haven't started in yet. I have the Haynes manual for '96-99 and it purports to tell how it is done, without having to remove the entire unit. But it is quite detailed and not intuitively obvious. It will take me a while to type it in, and you won't have the advantage of the illustrations. If you can wait for the mail I could just xerox the pages and postal mail them to you. So let me know what your real time frame is for the job. I can copy and mail them to you tomorrow. Or I could type in the instructions.
Roland