Vintage Air installation in a 1968 Satellite

[Kern Dog]

Heater control valve.
The instructions were written by dudes that never laid eyes on a big block Mopar. They state that one heater hose goes to the water pump and the other to the intake.

Yeah….

I proceeded anyway…
It does state that the bottom fitting on the evaporator gets the control valve. It has arrows on it.

There is some wiring involved:

How big of a hole do I have to drill to get this through the firewall ??

 

[Kern Dog]

Lucky for me, they do have a section that separates.

The hose was cut and the heater control valve put in.

There is a hole in the firewall below the hoses. It would need to be reamed and have a grommet in it.

I don’t know if it would be the best place though. I am trying to avoid drilling new holes if an existing one would work. I put the end of a zip tie through the hole to see how it would look from the inside…

Barely above the carpet and maybe even at risk of being kicked by a lively passenger. I marked an X above the hole…

This seems better. It is well above the top of the carpet.
From the seating perspective….(given the passenger is under 4 feet tall)

It looks like I’d be smart to just put the hole somewhere close to the height of the hoses, or at least close to them.
I still have the drain tube to consider.

 

[Kern Dog]

The drain tube is for the condensation that forms in the evaporator.

This one is at the bottom of the housing where it belongs but it is at risk of contact of kicking.

If Dwayne advises his passengers to avoid re-enactments of Super Bowl field goals or soccer scores, it would be helpful. The hose from this has to be slightly out of level to encourage easy draining and no obstructions. It points ahead to the engine bay. More holes to drill!

 

[Kern Dog]

The hose crimper is so much easier to use than a hand crank unit.

It came with the popular size dies.

It also had dies for those reduced barrier fittings.

The discharge line is crimped.

 

[Kern Dog]

With the drier mounted next to the condenser right behind the grille…..

….I had to form a hard line to run from the drier, down to below the bumper height to get out of view, then turn toward the passenger side.

From the section at the bottom, I’m going to shape a 48” hard line I had left over from my CAA install I did in my Charger in 2019.

Shaping lines sometimes means you have one shot to make it right. Experience helps here. I don’t have much of it.

I have a shorter 30” line too. The goal is to join the first line from the drier near the middle of the radiator, continue over and somehow pass through or over the core support.
Once inside the engine bay, I then just use a crimp fitting and hose to finish to the fender apron.
I will wait to connect to the drier. I’m told you cannot leave it exposed to the elements because it will contaminate the contents inside.

 

[Kern Dog]

The mock up.

It looks like the 30” line may be the way to go to get the hard line across and through the support. More on that later.
I used a generic rubber hose to mock up the #6 line from the elbow fitting at the apron forward…

The length is random, it may be end up shorter or longer.

The clamp is just temporary and used a hole already there.
Looking forward…

I could run the hard line through the core support where I marked an asterisk or above it in a hole already in the support. I’d have to enlarge it a bit and use a grommet.

More updates tomorrow?

 

[GTXDAN]

If you might be worried about that line running so close to the battery here is something we used to do for hydraulic lines on JD tractors in FL. The soil is so acidic down there it would eat the steel lines right up so we sprayed them with undercoating to keep them from getting eaten up. You might use truck bed liner paint too, as its pretty tough. Just an idea.

 

[68 Sport Satellite]

KD, can you post some photos of the driver's side with the battery in place and cables attached so I can see position of the hard line as well as the rubber line in relation to the connected battery cables. Since battery removal/replace will be a common task for future work, I want to confirm there is no annoying obstruction that must be wrestled with. Careful not to touch the battery posts to the metal line when doing so! I'd be inclined to place a section of open cell foam over that hard line near where it crosses the battery (or along the entire length maybe). The kind pre-cut lengthwise that they sell to insulate water line risers. Good idea? Bad idea?

I'm fine with the lower location asterisk line location that requires a new drilled hole.

 

[68 Sport Satellite]

silly question - do any of the threaded fittings throughout the system require pipe dope paste thread sealant or teflon tape or are they to be installed and tightened dry?

 

[Kern Dog]

silly question - do any of the threaded fittings throughout the system require pipe dope paste thread sealant or teflon tape or are they to be installed and tightened dry?

I don't know if they require it. Each fitting connection has a neoprene O-ring for sealing but maybe a non hardening sealant might help?

 

[1 Wild R/T]

No sealant on the threads... No sealing occurs there... They should be lightly lubed with refrigerant oil...

 

[68 Sport Satellite]

No sealant on the threads... No sealing occurs there... They should be lightly lubed with refrigerant oil...

then tightened just snug? Thanks for the help.

 

[Kern Dog]

This fitting just showed up, 4 days early!

Out to the shop I go.

 

[1 Wild R/T]

then tightened just snug? Thanks for the help.

I "snug" them pretty tight...

 

[Kern Dog]

I think the mock up is complete and I can just crimp everything that remains and move on to the rest of this project.
Here is what I did so far today.

The #10 elbow showed up so I did a test fit.

Due to the angle of the fender apron, the fitting needed to be a little tighter than 90 degrees to run parallel to the fender apron.

Not much of a bend to get it right.

The hose was test fitted and the end crimped.

As mentioned before, I used a clamp at the fender apron.
Next was the #6 hard line.
THIS. was fun…..
I’m used to the Charger where there is plenty of room between the grille and radiator. Only an anorexic woman or trailer park tweeker could get their arms down in there. I had to pull the grille.

Shaping the line, then bending it to get it through the hole in the top of the core support….

I started with the 30” hard line. It was going to be too short so I switched to the 48” one.

I’m tempted to spritz the #6 hard line with some matte black to hide it. It may be visible through the grille.

 

[Kern Dog]

A few more bends to the #6 line to get it in place.

There is no diagram for this, I am just making stuff fit and trying to get it to look decent.
The hose was test fitted.

Heater hoses were cut back and mocked up.

This is the way it will look when done. I just have to pull the heater hose from the #6 fittings. I used cheaper heater hose for the mock up instead of taking a chance with the actual A/C hose in case I cut it too short.

It looks pretty good to me.

 

[Kern Dog]

The drier is now much easier to reach.

Since the drier is not to be left open to the elements and since all the engine bay and wheel well lines are in place, I had to temporarily cap the threads on the interior side.

Now I can pull the cap from the drier and put the switch in place.

I haven’t quite figured how I’ll route the wiring for the switch.

The brass fitting on the right….

… serves as an adapter and has a valve in it to prevent contamination.

This will be visible through the grille. I’m leaving the grille out for now. I want Dwayne to weigh in on if he wants some of this stuff blacked out.

There are a LOT of bends in these lines.

 

[Kern Dog]

Hmm…

It actually isn’t that noticeable.

You can see it if you’re looking for it.

I’ll step away from this for the moment.

 

[Kern Dog]

Vintage Air supplies this black sheet metal panel.

It serves two functions. It covers up unused firewall holes whether the car was originally equipped with A/C or not and it has holes drilled to give correct placement of the evaporator unit under the dash.

My plan was to paint it blue to have it blend in with the car. Dwayne prefers to do away with it so I’ll pull it off. There will be holes to fill with grommets. The car was built without A/C so it doesn’t have all those other holes to block off.

I drilled a hole and routed the wires for the heater control valve.

With a grommet of course.

As you can see, it is up about the same height as the plumbing.

Pulling the firewall plate means the evaporator either comes out or has to be held by someone, ( nobody here to help)or propped up with “dunnage”. ( construction term, I swear)

I wanted to locate, mark and drill the hole for the drain. See the elbow on the bottom to the left?

Straight forward and down…unfortunately right in the crease of the ridges in the firewall.

But it has to be angled down. The car is on its tires now so I checked…

 

[Kern Dog]

Vintage supplies this plastic elbow.

It will go through the firewall with a grommet, turn down and drain condensation under the car.

I got lucky… these grommets were bought for when I tried to run the lines through the alignment access hole. I love using leftover stuff.
The hose here is some stuff I had here already.

The problem is that these grommets are too thin to work in the firewall where it is stamped at a curve.

I think it will be okay to go to the right near the black ink dot.
Using what I had on a shelf…

I was able to keep the evaporator in place.

Here you can see the holes for the heater hoses and what I think were for mounting the original heater and defroster unit.

Right behind the heater hose holes you can see the back side of the mounting bracket for the evaporator. I need to close this off somehow. Grommets may not fit in and stay with that bracket flush against the firewall. I could pull the evaporator and either space it off the firewall a little or drill holes it it to allow the grommets to fit. I could also put the grommets in from the inside, then they are captured by the evap bracket and couldn’t fall out.

I need to pull the unit anyway. I forgot that I have to screw on the #6 A/C line with the evaporator out because it is impossible to reach the fittings with the unit in place. Trying to get a wrench up in there would be tough and would probably only allow 1/63 of a turn at a time.