i recently hit a deer with my 98' villager. it bent back the radiator support bar on the passager side, putting a hole in my radiator and busting the coil. it also damaged a "grill" of sorts that is in front of the raditor with lines running to it. i was told by an auto parts store that this "grill" was for the air conditioner. someone else told me that the transmition fluid ran through it. can anyone tell me which is right. want to know if i can take it out if its for the air conditioner and how i can disengage the air condotioner and if i need to plug the lines if i do so.

If it was the tranny, you would see red fluid pouring out if it put a hole into it. My 98 does not have a grill for the transmission. Rather it's part of the radiator. If you drive it while leaking tranny fluid, you will ruin the transmission. That will be over $1K to fix.

If it's the AC heat exchanger, your AC won't work. I highly recommend that you get it fixed now as the AC system depends on the oil in the freon to lubricate the pump. Even in the cold weather the pump may kick in every once in a while especially if using the defroster. There is a low pressure switch which should stop too much damage. Also the system could get contaminated with dirt and moisture which can be very hard to remove.

Either way it will be much cheaper to fix it right now than later.