Heater core

[Gilmour]

Hi All,

Your precious help & advise are needed again:

Lesabre 2001 custom (~80K miles), few days ago the weather went cold, and I used the heater (single temperature lever, not dual a climate control module), and when before i went out of the vehicle, i noticed few cooling liquid drops on the passenger side carpet, I also smelled the cooling liquid when the heater was on.

My main suspect is the heater core, is there a valve that could leak when moving the temperature lever to red (hot)?, is it a common problem?

My second question, what should i take off to get to the heater core? (assuming it is my problem)


again,
Thanks for your help

[HotZ28]

No valve, just the core! The core is in a box behind the glove compartment. Not an easy job, unless you are young & nimble.

[Gilmour]

Not an easy job, unless you are young & nimble.

Lets say i was young before starting this fix

I took of the glove box, couldn't figure how to proceed, so i took off all the dashboard, then i saw the black heater/AC box (unit), i took all the small screws i saw, but still

please take a look at the 2 pictures of the current status:
http://sites.google.com/site/lesabre01site/Home/pics

should i take the whole black box out? (for some reason, i believe the AC lines should be dis attached to take the whole box).
in the second picture, i see a heat exchanger, is it the AC or the heater core?, and any idea how to reach the heater core lines clips behind the engine?

any help is appreciated.
Thanks.

[HotZ28]

If you pull the box apart, you should see the core, it looks like the one shown below.
OEM Part Number 52482185 Physical Size 10 1/2 x 7 x 1 Inlet 3/4 Outlet 5/8