Bad Heater Core?

[dsturch1]

Alright guys, so the saga continues...lol. I was driving around today for about 3 hours running errands and what not and all of a sudden I met up with my girl to get coffee. I left my truck running for a few minutes, and came back out to my truck and my windows are all fogged up. When I put my defroster on, it does not make the fog on the windows go away, however it just gets worse.

To me this sounds like it may be a bad heater core? I felt the carpet on the passenger side however it did not feel wet, but to the back of the center bottom of the dash behind the little cubbies felt a little bit wet.

As I continued to drive home, right before I pulled in my driveway I saw the temp gauge go up a little bit and my heat was not hot at all. Are my assumptions right when I say that this sounds like a bad heater core? Thanks in advance everyone...

 

[XLT]

Sounds like it could be the heater core. Could you by chance smell anti freeze?

 

[dsturch1]

Sounds like it could be the heater core. Could you by chance smell anti freeze?

Yes I definitely could smell antifreeze...is there any temporary solution to fix this other than actually replacing the heater core? I just need it to hold me over for about a week or so then ill have a whole week off work I can mess around with it.

 

[ucluglee]

I did this once on an old Bronco II I had and the Explorer looks similar. Under the hood on the passenger side right at the firewall is where the heater hoses connect to the heater core. Remove both lines from the heater core and get a piece of tubing (steel, copper, aluminum, etc) and connect both of those ends together. You won't have any heat or defrost, but your heater core won't be leaking either. Be sure to drain your radiator a little first so you won't have so much leak out on you.

 

[OneLever]

This thread and the links in it will probably help you.

If you simply can't work on it right now a temporary fix is to bypass the heater core by connecting the two feeder hoses with some kind of fitting.