I wanted to cover a few issues regarding my experiences with this project, one that had multiple twists and turns in the several months that it has been here.
First off, what I have to state here is based entirely on my own experiences and opinions. A person with greater skills or more experience will likely have a different opinion. That is fine.
This is only the second A/C kit that I have installed. The first one was in my own car 4 1/2 years ago. I used a Classic Auto Air system based on advice from a few other B body owners. In retrospect, I'm glad that I did go with CAA. Here are my observations. Feel free to chime in with your own as I feel this forum is an excellent way to help and to warn others for the troubles that they may encounter.
The Vintage Air components seem to be of great quality. The evaporator, the control panel, the wiring and the compressor itself seem excellent. I like the firewall reinforcement panel that they include compared to the two piece design used by Classic Auto Air. I was able to paint the cover with body color paint to allow it to blend in to where you have to look to notice that it isn't the stock firewall you're seeing. Kudos for that.
They do outsource the bracketry for the mounting of the compressor. Bouchillon supplies them to VA as well as CAA and maybe even other vendors. The fittings for the hard lines all seem to be of good quality. The instructions were decent. Not excellent but decent. The performance of the unit is unknown as of yet but if it blows as cold as my CAA unit does, that would be great news. It is mid 60s here so it isn't possible to gauge how well it will work when it is 100 or above.
My main complaint about the Vintage Air system is the very thing that some people like most about it. The routing of the heater hose lines and A/C lines. For some, it offers choices as to how you get to route them and they like that. For me, it made installation more difficult because no route was ideal, each one of them had drawbacks the CAA kit didn't have.
My Classic Auto Air system came with an evaporator that had the ends of the heater core and A/C fittings sticking forward and through the firewall. This made installation incredibly simple because now you just had to then attach lines on the engine side. The CAA kit included block off plates to cover the stock holes in the factory A/C firewall (that don't get used when installing the CAA kit) of the 68-70 B body cars. The very simple difference of the extension of the heater core nipples and stubs to connect to for the A/C lines made the CAA kit far simpler to install.
The Vintage kit may appeal to those that want a smooth firewall but to have that, you have 4 hoses routed in the wheelwell running up and over the RH UCA mount, then coming through the hole in the fender apron designed for access to the front alignment cam bolt. This design limits tire and wheel width choices and adds complexity to the system. This one issue was a big stumbling block for this project because no matter what I did, there were some drawbacks. I considered routing the 4 lines through the firewall on the engine side but the area is so cramped up in there, a person 1/2 my size might have been able to get their hands and eyes up in there to do it but I just couldn't. The only other option was to run the lines through the firewall in the wheelwell area. I did end up going through the fender apron but in a way that I have not seen done before yet it worked out well, in my opinion.
There were several changes to the engine pulleys and brackets that were done. I did the same here as with my Charger.
The 1 groove alternator was replaced with a 2 groove since the factory A/C cars had two belts wrap around the alternator, crank and A/C compressor.
Factory pulleys were refinished and mounted for the crank and water pump. A factory idler pulley was used for the water pump/fan belt.
Bouchillon supplied the alternator bracket but it required some finesse to make it all line up.
The power steering pump stays in the same location. Mounting it is a bit more tricky since the brackets now share space with the A/C brackets so there are some accommodations that must be made.
VA supplied a shallower glove box liner but I was able to route an A/C duct so there was enough room to retain the stock liner.
An experienced installer with all the proper tools and fittings can do this in far less time than I took. In short, I was figuring things out as I went. I'd go down one path that required some specific fittings, then have to abandon that idea and try something else.....which also required different fittings, etc.
I'm just an adventurous enthusiast with some free time and a love for these cars. There were times where two minds working together would have absolutely shortened the process and made things much easier. To be fair, I did my Charger in a fraction of the time partially due to the evaporator lines but also because it was my car and there was no back and forth debate to ensure my ideas would meet approval from someone else.
I respect the owner and wanted him to be happy with the work. If this were a car I were just building to sell, I'd have just made it work in the simplest manner possible. I feel that any shop that took the job would have done the same. They are in business to make money. They can't do that if a car sits for months in their shop taking up space.
Again, I welcome any input that others may have regarding their installation.
