Heater core gone bad?

[blueroo]

In my post about serious engine problems, I mentioned how the temp gauge acts up every now and then and I barely get any heat inside the car. It was suggested on a few boards that I "burp" the lines.

So earlier tonight, I burped the lines. I'm still getting little or no heat inside the car. What makes it really bizzare is both the lines to and from the heater core, after a little while are too hot to grab. You can touch them, but unless you want to hurt yourself, you can't grab them. The blower motor works flawlessly.

I can only think of two possible causes:

1) One of the tubes in the core is partially clogged, reducing the effectiveness of the heater.

2) When I reassembled the heater box, I didn't replace the seals, due in part to the fact the seals aren't available for my heater box. The thing that doesn't make sense to me about that is if you have it set to heat or defrost, you don't get any heat anywhere and the outside of the heater box isn't warm anywhere.

Any suggestions?