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Vintage Air Install Update #2


Bartman

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I purchased most of the components I need from Vintage Air today. Here's a list:

 

66005 GEN-II mini Heat, Cool, Defrost (without vents)

03704-OVA 12 x 24 condensor

48104-RHQ Control Panel

07330-VUG polished aluminum dryer

384600-MBA polished aluminum bluckhead plate

safety switch

adapter for GM compressor

 

I still need to figure out what to do about my hoses. After I get everything in place I will need to figure out the lengths and what type of hoses to buy.

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Sounds good, look forward to seeing how the evaporator fits up behind the dash.
I will probably mount the evaporator similar to how fastzcars mounted his. You can see a couple of pictures on his home page (http://pg.photos.yahoo.com/ph/graphequ@pacbell.net/album?.dir=/e8e5).

 

I will definitely post pictures of my install as it progresses.

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  • 2 weeks later...

Everything arrived from Vintage Air last night, and so far I'm very impressed. The items were packaged well and looked to be of high quality. I really like the upgraded control panel, it looks better in person than it does in the pictures. I think the polished dryer and bulkhead plate are nice additions as well.

 

I started removing the dash last night and I hope to have the evaporator mocked up in a couple of days. Removing the old ventilation system, makes me really happy I'm getting rid of those old cables and levers and getting servo motor control technology.

 

If anyone needs any specific pictures or measurements of the new equipment just let me know, otherwise I'll just post pic's after I start getting things installed.

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I was able to remove the dash last night:

DSCF2208.JPG

Man, I hope I can get everything back together.:redface:

 

I'm working on getting the evaporator in now. There are two small diameter rods between the top and bottom of the dash that will probably be in the way of the evaporator...it looks like they will have to be removed.

 

quick240z wanted to see pic's of the back and bottom of the evaporator, so I'll post them here in case someone else wants to see them as well.

DSCF2210.JPG

DSCF2209.JPG

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Bartman,

 

Thanks for the pics. They help alot.

Now that I see the pics you took, I think I am going to try to mount the evaporator much closer to the passenger side (behind the glove box).

 

If I do this, I may only have to cut one of the metal support rods you mention or maybe not at all. 1tuffz adapted a 280Z plastic glovebox into his 240Z to replace the carboard one. I think I will do the same thing. I picked up a 280Z glove box on eBay. I plan to cut the back off of it, shorten the depth and epoxy the back on again to gain some clearance. Looking at your picture, there seems to be much more room for the evaporator on that side.

 

The 2 problems I see with this are, The metal arm that stops the glove box from flopping all the way open and the evaporator being too far away from the drivers side footwell to provide heat for the driver.

 

I believe that V.A. has a vent hose that will hook up to the bottom heater outlet so I can direct heat towards the drivers side footwell.

 

I am sure I can come up with something for the glovebox stop too.

 

All this is from pictures and looking under my crowded dash.

 

What do you think?

 

Also, you may find it easier to re-install the dash if you pull the steering wheel.

 

 

Thanks for all of your help.

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I actually started playing around with evaporator placement last night (after I removed the stock unit). I initially placed it so that the center of the two floor vents lined up with the center of the car. It seemed to fit okay, but fastzcars initially had it located here and wound up having to move it over to avoid problems with the gas pedal.

 

The instructions say to install the unit up as hish as possible with the blower housing against the passenger side kick panel. This would definitely require a hose to get output from the floor vents to the drivers side. I would think this would also be a problem routing the air to the passengers vent.

 

I'm still thinking as close to the center as possible without interferring with the gas pedal...I'll play around with it more tonight.

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Lookin good bartman. Man you got that dash out pretty quick.

I'm still thinking as close to the center as possible without interferring with the gas pedal...I'll play around with it more tonight.

3 Hours Ago 02:22 PM

If you notice the electrical connectors on the rights side of the pictures that bartman, they are suppose to be on the driver side. Just make sure they clear the gas pedel assembly, you don't want to snag the wires with the gas pedal. BTW. I didn't use any hoses for the floor vents, the unit is close enough to the ceneter that the air gets diverted by the trans tunnel itself. When I put the heater on I can feel the heat at my feet pretty well.
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I think I got the evaporator in the position I want it. It clears the gas pedal, but it's still pretty close to the center.

DSCF2211.JPG

Like fastzcars said, I think with this position the floor vents will work just fine without any hoses. Even the glovebox will still fit. Not only that but look at the passengers side below the dash...that's right nothing! No more stock blower sticking out from under the dash. I mocked up some temporary mounts to hold it in place for now:

DSCF2214.JPG

It looks like I will have plenty of room to install my vent hoses on the top and plenty of access on the passengers side to run my hoses into the engine compartment.

 

So far it looks like this is going to work out quite well.

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Looks great Bartman.

 

 

I can't tell from the pics but do you think there is still room for a stereo to be mounted in the stock location?

 

Will the heater and A/C hoses has to take sharp turns to get to their hookups?

 

 

Keep the updates coming. I plan to start my A/C install in about a month.

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I can't tell from the pics but do you think there is still room for a stereo to be mounted in the stock location?

I think so, but I will verify tomorrow or Saturday.

Will the heater and A/C hoses has to take sharp turns to get to their hookups?

 

Yes, the hoses will need to make a fairly sharp bend to go through the firewall. This is another factor that suggests a cental placement is better than pushing it too far towards the passenger's side. I think the bulkhead plate will be located a distance away from the evaporator to minimize the 'sharpness' of the turn. To prepare in advance for your install, you can view the instuctions on Vintage Air's web site in pdf form at this location:

http://www.vintageair.com/DownloadsSection/Universal%20Series%20Evaporators/Gen%20II%20Series/66005-Series%20HCD%20(Inet).pdf

 

Bartman, so that cylindrical housing to the right of the evaporator is the blower fan? It looks like it basically connects directly to the evaporator. Neat.
Yes that's the blower and it's very compact, but I bet it pushes more air than that big stock unit.:mrgreen:
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Bartman, that looks good. Will you be able to pull air from the cowl or is it just recirculated in the car.
Based on what I've seen and read so far, the evaporator doesn't have a provision for pulling in any outside air. So it looks like it will only be able to recirculate the air in the car.

 

But then again...since I redesigned my intake I can now use the stock fresh air intakes to bring in air from in front of the radiator support into the footwells. So I could use these to bring in fresh air while my VA system is running.

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I called Vintage Air in regards to pulling in outside air using their systems. They told me that all their systems are designed to work only with recirculated air. I mentioned about opening fresh air vents while using the system, and he didn't think that would be a good idea because condensation would form on the evaporator that would wind up dripping off the unit (he made an analogy to a cold soda can sitting on a picnic table).

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Crap! - was he saying that the system doesn't have a way to drain off condensate - or - that he's just worried that the housing will have condensation problems?

If it's the latter then a little judiciously applied insulation to th eoutside of the housing will take care of that. If it's the former - you better not run any fresh air or you'll have a wet, stinky carpet!

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Crap! - was he saying that the system doesn't have a way to drain off condensate - or - that he's just worried that the housing will have condensation problems?

If it's the latter then a little judiciously applied insulation to th eoutside of the housing will take care of that. If it's the former - you better not run any fresh air or you'll have a wet' date=' stinky carpet![/quote']I'm pretty sure that he's talking about condensation on the exterior of the evaporator (housing). I have a dryer that will be part of the system that should drain off condensation within the system.

 

I would think that insulation applied to the outside of the evaporator would allow you to use fresh air while running AC without having exterior condensation problems.

 

Most factory systems have a way to pull in fresh air through the evaporator (when you turn the system to 'AC' you get outside air, when you switch to 'MAX AC' you only get recirculated air). This feature does not exist on Vintage AC evaporators.

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