by Kate Wilson

Created on: February 06, 2008

Eek! I drive a beater truck and now there is fog forming in the cab. This is not good., and when it did happen to me in my 1987 Ford Ranger, I thought that it was an exhaust leak coming into the cab so I was concerned about the toxic nature of this miasma. I turned the truck around aborting my trip across town. As most people do when they drive older vehicles I started to weigh the cost of repairs against the cars potential life span. Unfortunately I'm also very sentimental about my vehicles so would do almost anything to avoid having to junk them. I started on the onerous task of diagnosing the problem.

A friend of mine helped out by pointing out that the miasma smelled more like antifreeze than exhaust fumes. So what could that mean? I hadn't the foggiest. What complicated our attempted diagnosis was the discovery of some antifreeze coming from a little leaky spigot. This spout ran from the fire wall between the cab through to the back of the wheel well. The car repair manual for the Ford Ranger was not helpful. It just seemed that something was coming from behind the fire wall, and it turns out that the only thing beyond the fire wall that transports antifreeze through it - is the heater core.

Could it be that the heater core is the most obvious cause of my foggy cab? Well I took the chance that it was. A heater core replacement I found out was one of the easiest car repairs on the old Ford Ranger. Here's what I went through: First I obtained the parts, the heater core for one, which was about $60.00. I was also sure to get extra hose, inch is about right in a 6 foot length. That cost almost $ 11.00. I also got 4 new hose clamps because these can wear over time. These cost me pocket change.

In the Ford Ranger I found the heater core was contained in its own housing under the dash on the passenger side. I didn't have to take apart the entire dash, a scary prospect for me, because it never goes back the same way. In order to get at the heater core I had to wedge myself between the seat and the door, looking up under the dash, I barely felt thin enough! Getting the housing off was a eureka event because it was on the housing that I found the source of my mystery spigot, and the antifreeze fluid that was piddling from it. When I finished my dance of celebration and wiped antifreeze from my face, I went round to the engine side and located the heater core's input and output tubes. They run through the fire wall and are paired quite tightly together, usually they

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