Heater core replace? (Town car)

If the leak is still there then it isn't going to get stopped by the bars leak. That stuff works in a few hours not days. It also has a nasty habit of plugging the heater core, radiator and helping to destroy the water pump seals. But too late for that.

On an 86 TC the core isn't that bad. You need to pull the dash out then remove the access panel and the core. Not fun but not real bad. Now on the newer ones you have to pull the engine due to lack of clearance to even get to the core!

As for bypassing it and driving it in the winter. I'm in the northeast and we have one fire engine that NEVER had a heater, care to guess which one NEVER moves in the winter?

Are you serious?

Would you ride a bike in the winter? Yeah, I know, some do.

Consider the safety aspect. When you're shivering while driving, how much attention are you giving to your driving? Answer = not much. How well can you see through a frosted-up windshield? Not too good.

I'd say "park it" if you're not going to get it fixed.

As Steve W. said, BarsLeak isnt going to fix this one, it would appear.

If you have pretty severe winter weather where you live, trying to deal with loss of defrost and heat through the winter would be unpleasant and maybe dangerous. Not that people havent done it before....the old Camaros had heater hoses that connected to the firewall connectors under the fenders. Lots of people ran for years with the heater hoses bypassed. (It was a lot easier to cut a hole in the wheeltub than to do this job in the more traditional way!)

Last, you can probably do this job yourself if you have tools and are fairly mechanically inclined. If you can get to a library with good repair manuals you can get an idea of how to proceed. It may take you hours....the first time you do it. But if you have more time than money, it IS possible.

I recently replaced the air conditioner evaporator core on my vehicle, which should have been a snap, according to the manual. It took me a lot longer than a snap, because the manual doesnt tell you everything, usually. I did it because I wanted to know how to do it. Now, if I had to do it again, I could do a much faster and cleaner job.

Good luck, should you decide to do it yourself.

I asked here a couple of times for help on my '89 Grand Marquis and no one volunteered a syllable that I saw. I and a friend did it on his driveway over several hours one afternoon. Ruined the rubber surround liner that was around it, because I didn't know it was supposed to be one piece. Auto parts store had given me the wrong part; had to go back and get the core for an '88, which was an identical replacement. It didn't go 100% perfect, but it was far from a train wreck.