Anyone have any experience adding AC to a non-AC car? I'm not talking about Vintage Air or the like, but actually adding an AC unit from a modern car? Any advice would be great...
If you take one from another car make it an under dash unit. Otherwise you will have to butcher your car to make it all fit the firewall. Do the Vintage Air are one like theirs and stay cool.
Either a modern kit, or an old add on underdash unit. I have one of those add on things in one of my old trucks, it works. Not quite the same as a modern one, but cool air of any kind is nice when it's hot and humid out. But I gotta fix the drain tubes...got a shoe full of condensate when I made a right turn!
squirrel, What happens on a left turn??? Zaid880, If you have an unusuall engine you may have to fab the compressor brackets. If you use O/T parts then it makes the car O/T.......huh Use an early Mustang or Ford truck under dash unit so you don't have to cut vent holes in your dashboard.
On a left turn, the water doesn't leak out the right side of the unit. It only leaks out the left side, and only when I turn right. Of course.
trying to source a modern car unit will be a true test of ingenuity and perseverance. the newer the car, the more integrated into the car the A/C system is, and the more crap you have to have from the donor to make it work. almost any functional R12 system can be changed over to R134 and what parts can't be bought off the shelf, can be made up by a decent HVAC shop. a kit is the best way to go; the vendor can supply any replacement parts you might ever need, or give you a list of what it's made up from. but honestly.... how much of that poor banger's power is supplying cool air!?!?!
not speaking from experience, but can't any AC system be hacked down to compressor, condenser, evaporator, fan, switches, and hoses? With schematics you can break the connectors down to basics. What if one were to start with measuring and fitting the evaporator, get an appropriate compressor, and the rest is fittings, brackets, relays, and wire splicing. a kit is obviously easier and faster, but starting from scratch would be cheaper and more fun. possible?
I'm scheming up one for the 46 truck in which all the parts except the evaporator are coming from the same donor vehicle. Since the firewall is a blank slate and under dash is wide open.... I give it a 50/50 chance. Will/would I try this with my '52 Pontiac? Nope
I've done a bunch of them, all different ways. The easiest is a Vintage Air kit. Except on more unusual engines, you have to make your own brackets for the compressor. The most work, and most unusual, was my own 55 Olds. I did this back in the 80's. I DID use another car as a donor to put A/C in the Olds. It was some 70's GM car. I used a Ford Tecumseh compressor, as it was the easiest to make brackets for the Olds engine, at the time. Just a big square pump. For the interior, I used the fresh air box on the Olds, it was a shallower, mirror image of the heater box, that was on the passenger side. The fresh air duct, I made deeper, and fabbed up a fan mounting, to look just like the fan mount on the heater side, as it extended into the engine compartment. I bought universal (aftermarket) AC controls form a supplier, and somehow made it all work together. I even used the orifice tube, and accumulator from the GM car, in the Olds, instead of the capillary tube control valve that aftermarkets usually have. It was a lot of work, but it looked great, almost factory, you might say, and it worked very well, but I dont' think I'd do it again, unless it was a VERY special car! Oh...and to add, I would stay away from trying to use the entire factory type heat/AC box from a donor car , in most cases. The controls are kind of complicated, with blend doors, and such, to fine tune the temperature. In most cases, the simpler controls work almost as well, and are so much easier to hook up, and less stuff to malfunction!
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