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I changed mine in my 89 last weekend. I did pull the dash, the blower unit, the evaporator unit, and the heater unit, because I have the shop manual and I have some a/c issues anyway. My system was already purged so removing the a/c lines was no big deal. You may be able to get to the core without pulling any of the under dash units, just loosening them. I would pull the dash because it isn't hard and it gives you much more room. You need to remove the radio, remove 10 bolts (4 on top, 2 on each end, 2 in the middle), pull the light switch, and loosen the steering column support bolts. This will allow you to move the dash out. Once you do that, the heater unit is in the middle of the under dash area with the evaporator unit to its right and the blower unit all the way right. The heater core is on the left end of the left most component (the heater unit) so you may be able to swap it out without pulling everything. You will probably want to loosen the nuts holding the heater unit to the firewall. There are 3 , I believe, one at each corner exceptlower left as you look forward. I think you need to loosen the nuts so you can pull the core tubes out of the firewall. After that, there's only a couple of mounting bolts holding the core in the heater unit and one snap linkage that must be disconnected. I used a marker to mark the location for the snap linkage in the heater core water valve so that I could snap it right back in. That way, I didn't have to make any adjustments. Everything goes back in following the reverse order and you're done.
Now the bad news. I spent a year trying to find a reasonable deal on a heater core. Both the 4 and 6 cylinders use the same core. Last year, the dealer wanted over $300 for the core. He connected me with their regional parts manager who said he only had visability on 27 units. I found someone through a Google search who offered one using a different part number for just over $200. I saw some on e-bay but didn't want to go over $70 (boy was I an idiot!). Finally, I found a used one on e-bay that I got for $50. It works OK so far.
Good Luck, if you need a detail from the shop manual, just e-mail me.
Joe
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