Thanks to all who responded to my "omnibus" post. I got a lot of good info.

Now, at the moment I find myself rather cash-free and needing to do something with my heater core (it would seem) -- it's leaking all over the floor and I got the mist out the vents today (in fact today the coolant level got low enough to calead to near-overheat conditions, necessitating a nice walk down the highway to a service station and a walk back with a watering can full of water).

What I'm wondering is, can I open up the dash and just clamp off the core hoses (assuming they're intact), or do I need to splice them together so coolant flows through them (but not the core)?

It being nearly summer (though you wouldn't know it, here in Virginia -- they're talking about freezes in the western counties and frost here in the DC area!) I figure I won't need the heat for some months anyway, and in a month or two I should have both the money and the time to put into replacing it.

Also, since I don't yet have my "green book", is there a good set of instructions available online for getting into the depths of the dash? I saw the cutting shortcut described here, but I don't have a Dremel tool and would prefer not to slice'n'dice my interior anyway. Will I need wrenches and sockets, or just a good set of screwdrivers?