After the most recent freeze i discovered a small coolant leak right at the fire wall where the hose connects to the heater core and there is a faint smell of coolant when i turn on the heater.
Does anyone have any advice or instructions on getting the old heater out? (it looks like it's a real bugger to get to!)
Thanks

You are going to need to partly disassemble your dash. It seems like a big job, but if you go at it systematically it's not too bad. <IIRC> You need to disassemble everything to the right of the instrument panel. One thing that helps is to keep your fasteners organized by sticking them on a sheet of cardboard and writing the locations next to the fastener. You'll probably find a lot of dirt & dust in your ducts and you'll find that the duct seals are falling apart. You can replace the seals with self-adhesive weather stripping from your local Home store.




I've still got this '89 4runner donor truck from my EFI upgrade project (see image below). The dash is open so if you need any specific how-to photos I'd be glad to post them up. In fact it might be a good excuse for me to retrieve the heater core out of that for use as a back-up for my pickup -- Matt

Thanks Matt.
That photo does help and good idea on the card board to keep everything organized.

Of course I stripped the dash down way more than you will have to.

I looked at all my manuals, factory, Clymer and Chilton, and I could only find the heater core procedure in the Chilton. My Chilton manual has a good step-by-step with photos. Your library system may have the Chilton Manual for this vehicle (if you don't already have one). They sell cheap on ebay too.

Also, If you buy a replacement from an auto parts store look at it to see that it has the same fin count as the original. Years ago I bought a replacement from NAPA that had a less dense fin structure, and I can say that it puts out less heat than the original. Which is a big deal here in Wisconsin when the temps fall below 0. -- Matt