How do you locate and change the heater core in a 2000 Mercury Cougar?

It's inside your dashboard. You have to remove your dash to get to it.

It is not a job for a newby backyard mechanic as you have to disconnect a lot of important things to get to it.

If you do decide to take this on:

1) Make sure you have another vehicle as you will probably not finish for several days, if at all.

2) Make sure to tag both ends of everything you disconnect and mark it all down in a notebook so you can be sure to know what needs to be connected back to what and you can check off each thing as you reconnect it so you know you have everything reconnected before you put it all back together.

3) Remove your front seats first. This will give you way more room to work and you will most likely have to remove them to get the dash out anyway.

The irony is, once you get to the heater core it's pretty easy to replace. Undo the bracket that holds it in place and loosen the o-rings, pop the hoses off of the old heater core, slip them on the new core, tighten the o-rings and resecure it with the bracket and your done...But then you have to reassemble your entire dash board.

If I were you, I'd pay someone else to do it.

First answer by ID1257578265. Last edit by ID1257578265. Question popularity: 1 [recommend question]