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Vintage Air installation in a 1968 Satellite

I bought an A/C manifold and hose kit from (You know where)

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I do like that is stores in a sturdy case. I bought this not just for Dwayne’s car but for my own as well.

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Yeah, I will read the instructions.

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The hoses are longer than on my other set.

I hooked it up and turned on the pump. Within 4 seconds, it was at 20”.
A few minutes later…

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Assuming no leaks, how long should it take to get to 30”?
I bought this valve…

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I almost bought some cans of this…

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Can you believe that even at $15 a can, they also have a $10 deposit??
I wasn’t sure how much I needed for my own car so I didn’t buy any. I should have bought some anyway.

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Here we are almost 20 minutes in and it stuck at 22”. I got curious…

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I had this vacuum gauge for testing car manifold vacuum levels.

Jugging the hose end while taking pictures…

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Look closely.

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Yeah. It maxes out barely over 20”. This pump is essentially worthless. New ones are $100. I don’t feel like spending that much. Harbor Freight does have a simpler one powered by pressurized air for a fraction of the price. I’m going to try that.
 
I called the guy at Classic Auto Air to get the spec. For my own car. I needed 24oz of R134 so I bought two 12 oz cans and this:

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I set the 134 cans aside for my car. Regarding the pump, My expectations are low.

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It MET my expectations!

It pissed air and didn’t do anything but make noise. No pressure, no vacuum
THANKS china….

They have two electric vacuum pumps at HF. The one I have was borrowed from a guy that moved out of state. It is $100 new. The other one they have is $140. It sucks to chase dead ends. Neither pump lists the max vacuum they can pull, just airflow ratings which I’m not sure how to connect that with vacuum. I can just see me buying a new pump and having it too max out around the sane 20-22 number.
As it sits, This car did hold at 22” of vacuum. Before replacing the #10 hose in the wheel well, it wouldn’t hold vacuum at all. Now it seems to slowly drop off. I changed nothing but the gauges. Do I just let the shop have at it ?
Another failed attempt is a minimum of $90. It is a gamble taking it to the shop when I can’t get the vacuum numbers up to spec. This is where experience helps. Maybe it is fine, maybe it would leak at a higher vacuum number.

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Like I told you much earlier.. Go to Auto Zone & get one of their loaner pumps... Also have you checked to oil level in the vacuum pump you have? It takes refrigerant oil.... Normally a sight glass on the end of the pump...
 
I topped off the oil in the pump. It weeps out a bit though and is low again.
I forgot about the Auto Zone loaners. To be honest, I’m not enjoying this part at all. Nothing like repeated failures to take the fun out of a job. I’ll head to Auto Zone and get another pump and see if it will reach the 30” number.
I’m probably not thinking straight. Im frustrated with this. I just don’t have the experience with diagnosis and repair of this stuff. That is why the original plan was for me to just do the physical installation and let Dwayne find a shop to take it across the finish line.
 
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If it is holding at 22", it will also hold at 28". If there was a leak, it would go to atmospheric. The reason for going to 28 is that all the moisture and contaminants will be out of the system.
 
I tried a new vacuum pump that I got from Auto Zone.

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It shot up to 30” within 2 minutes.


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I shut off the valve and pump. Within a few minutes….
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Not great. It does still have a leak. I’m going to go over the various connections and try again.
 
I did find 3 fittings that were not as tight as they should be. I rechecked and the pressure still drops. I looked everywhere, even under the dash. It doesn't dump pressure as fast as it did the first time I took the car to the shop so the leak isn't as bad. I had a hard enough time finding a big leak. A smaller leak is out of my league so I'll let the shop take it from here.
Rain is forecast tomorrow afternoon so I'm going to wait until Monday. I was thinking that if it takes them awhile to find and fix the leak, I could be dealing with rain. I avoid rain in my own car, I'm not driving his car in it either.
 
D O N E.
The man found two leaks and fixed them. One was at the fitting where the replaced hose attached. He thought it was cross threaded (slightly) though I'm not sure how that could be possible. The line is in a tight spot and it is in tension as it gets tightened, Maybe the threads just showed some wear?
Regardless...He fixed it and put some dye in the system to help detect future leaks. (if they occur)
It is unusually cool here lately, 54 degrees and almost April so I didn't get a chance to do a hot weather evaluation but the air coming from the vents is a lot colder than the ambient temperature. I refilled the Freon in my car over the weekend and both cars make about the same temp of COLD air.

S C O R E !!
 
D O N E.
The man found two leaks and fixed them. One was at the fitting where the replaced hose attached. He thought it was cross threaded (slightly) though I'm not sure how that could be possible. The line is in a tight spot and it is in tension as it gets tightened, Maybe the threads just showed some wear?
Regardless...He fixed it and put some dye in the system to help detect future leaks. (if they occur)
It is unusually cool here lately, 54 degrees and almost April so I didn't get a chance to do a hot weather evaluation but the air coming from the vents is a lot colder than the ambient temperature. I refilled the Freon in my car over the weekend and both cars make about the same temp of COLD air.

S C O R E !!
Where was the second leak?
 
Where was the second leak?
My wallet.
Holy crap....The standard service is $200. I got charged that plus $90 for a vacuum down (45 minutes) and another $90 for leak detection. $380 total today plus the $90 last week when they found the first leak.
I don't know if they found a second leak or if I misunderstood. The man mentioned the O ring in the fitting didn't look good though it was new. Maybe it was mis-shapen?
I'm not taking it apart to check!

If I were to do more of these installations, I'd need to learn some leak detection skills. I charged the system in my own car for just the cost of 2 cans of R-134, essentially under $40.
 
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.
 
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Excellent summary KD. I think it turned out great.
I might give Vintage Air a call and see if they're open to me emailing them a few photos of your modified wheel well routing to give an option for other customers.

A couple of clarifications to inform others:
The reason the Vintage Air kit evaporator lines cannot be routed directly through the firewall is because, unlike the Classic Auto Air evaporator, the Vintage Air evaporator connections point sideways towards the passenger fender, with little to no room under the dash for clearance. Getting fittings connected properly to the Vintage Air evaporator under dash was no small feat for Greg.

I've heard that the Vintage Air evaporator is of noticeably different size than the one from Classic Auto Air. Greg, can you confirm if the Vintage Air unit is smaller or larger?
 
I've heard that the Vintage Air evaporator is of noticeably different size than the one from Classic Auto Air. Greg, can you confirm if the Vintage Air unit is smaller or larger?
I think the VA unit may be thicker front to back but maybe shorter side to side but I don't remember exactly. I haven't looked under my own dash in awhile.
 
I think the VA unit may be thicker front to back but maybe shorter side to side but I don't remember exactly. I haven't looked under my own dash in awhile.
I think I had read the same - that the Vintage Air evaporator is shorter in side to side length. Both are MUCH shorter than the stock under dash non-A/C heating unit! Did we save some weight there as well?
 
I weighed my car before with the stock A/C box then after I finished. I gained weight but certainly not because of the in dash unit.
The compressor, condenser, lines, drier and brackets were not in place before because I converted from the stock 318 to a 440 in 2001.it was then that I removed all the A/C stuff from the engine side.
I should have weighed the in dash units side by side but I didn't have a scale big enough back then. I do now. I could weigh one of my spare stock HVAC boxes and at least report the weight of that one. I expected the conversion to cut 15-20 lbs but it actually added that much due to the new system being complete.
The changeover included a different radiator, water pump housing, (new aluminum which actually did save 6 lbs over my old iron one) idler bracket and pulley, bigger crank pulley, A/C brackets, etc.
I would expect that totally complete stock VS either of these aftermarket kits would be at least a 20-25 lb weight savings.
 
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Delivery day...YAY!

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Using my 402,500 mile truck, I dragged the Plymouth back home. Gas mileage wasn't horrible but it took me almost $130 in gas and took almost 8 hours to get there and back. Traffic wasn't bad but what the heck, man? Dorks driving 58-62 mph on a freeway with a 65 mph limit? WHY ?? Not all of them were car enthusiasts eyeballin the car. Many were just dorks. What possesses a person to be satisfied driving 58 miles per hour on the interstate? It wasn't like the traffic were heavy, it wasn't raining, the roads were straight. SOME people are total dullards.
Dwayne was happy with the work and the A/C blows C O L D !!
Score !!
 
Draggin this car on the road, I felt like a rock star. Lots of smiles, waves and thumbs up. I like that.
 
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