At 07:01 PM 7/26/2008, Thomas Jefferson Kitts wrote...

>When directly touching the heater core with the probes I get:
>
>on 20k ohms (20,000), the multimeter reads: "0.00"
>
>on 2000 it reads: "010" (no decimal)
>
>on 200 it reads: "00.5 or 00.6"
>
>Is it safe to assume the core is cooked?

What do you mean by "touching the heater core"? You need to measure the
two wires going into the heater. The same two wires you measured 120V
on before.

You said "I'm bypassing the heater rod altogether." when measuring
voltage between those two wires, to which I replied: "test the ohms
through the heater rod." Same wires, same heater rod.