Today we discuss the most tedious part of the Vintage Air swap. The firewall penetrations.
1. First step is to,sadly, remove the stock heater motor housing. I'm not going to describe how to remove it, other than it has a couple semi-hard-to-find bolts which come in thru the underdash area. Oh yes, you need to remove the glove box to gain access for pretty much everything. Turn out the glove box is very easily removed, just the little bolts you see inside it when you open it up.
2. Apparently VA has some generic firewall blankoffs you can buy. Because I refuse to do anything the easy way (and I didn't know they had them) I made my own out of sheet metal. I used the previously (sadly) removed fan box as a template. The opening is not square, it has a whoop in it. So I would imagine the VA ones would need to be modified anyway. I dunno. The first pic below shows the plate installed (with the two AC penetrations already in. I guess I didn't take any pics of it in its virgin state...). The kit comes with these special firewall AC fittings. They prevent running a rubber hose thru and having to use a grommet. The pic also shows the location I chose for the dryer. It also shows the two heater core tubes sticking thru.
3. Second pic basically shows my finished product. It's a very busy corner after this installation. The large wire loom will not be an issue for most people, it is the harness going inside to the TBI computer. There will be a wire loom going thru however, is shown right above the large loom. There is just a lot of fiddling, bending, testing, rebending, more fiddling etc until you get the liquid lines to be how you want.
4. Getting the liquid lines right: As I mentioned, it a lot of trial and error. The kit comes with more than enough line, so don't try to get too perfect the first cut. Make them a little too long and just trim them back until they fit. NOTE: the fittings which come with the kit have to be crimped on once you get them all properly pondered and positioned. Straight fittings don't matter how you position them prior to crimping. But any kind of curved fitting (the majority of them) must be marked when everything is fitting well so they are crimped at the right angle. I marked each fitting-to-hose connection with a sharpie and made two marks on each one. That gave the AC shop a dual reference point prior to crimping. This is one of the most important ways to prevent swearing, breaking things, cursing your mother, kicking the dog or other things...if the fittings aren't crimped at the right angle you will hate it.
5. In the second pic, the hinky looking grey sheet metal thing is the mount for the VA hot water valve. The thing is ridiculous looking and offers no obvious way to bolt it to anything. So now it's hidden and supported properly. I may make a less amateur looking mount later...or not.
6. Third pic show the underdash orientation of the thicker hose, threaded on to the firewall fitting and to the connection on the evaporator. This is a stubby line, so, again, get the angled fittings crimped correctly or be sad.
7. Last pic is a little hard to understand, but shows the smaller under dash liquid line threaded on to the firewall fitting, curving about 180 degrees and attaching to the evap smaller fitting. It is in annoying proximity to the heater tubes, but I was able to convince them all to cohabitate. This evap connection was a pain to get started by hand, but you do not want to put a wrench on it until you are positive it is hand started.
8. NOTES: The heater tubes which come with the kit are straight. They both need to be 90 degrees. So I had to buy those. I suppose you may be able to buy them instead of the straight ones, but I'm not sure how VA handles that. There are a couple other fittings which have to be purchased to replace the ones in the kit. I'll get to those in the last chapter of the installation under the irritations and weirdnesses article.
1. First step is to,sadly, remove the stock heater motor housing. I'm not going to describe how to remove it, other than it has a couple semi-hard-to-find bolts which come in thru the underdash area. Oh yes, you need to remove the glove box to gain access for pretty much everything. Turn out the glove box is very easily removed, just the little bolts you see inside it when you open it up.
2. Apparently VA has some generic firewall blankoffs you can buy. Because I refuse to do anything the easy way (and I didn't know they had them) I made my own out of sheet metal. I used the previously (sadly) removed fan box as a template. The opening is not square, it has a whoop in it. So I would imagine the VA ones would need to be modified anyway. I dunno. The first pic below shows the plate installed (with the two AC penetrations already in. I guess I didn't take any pics of it in its virgin state...). The kit comes with these special firewall AC fittings. They prevent running a rubber hose thru and having to use a grommet. The pic also shows the location I chose for the dryer. It also shows the two heater core tubes sticking thru.
3. Second pic basically shows my finished product. It's a very busy corner after this installation. The large wire loom will not be an issue for most people, it is the harness going inside to the TBI computer. There will be a wire loom going thru however, is shown right above the large loom. There is just a lot of fiddling, bending, testing, rebending, more fiddling etc until you get the liquid lines to be how you want.
4. Getting the liquid lines right: As I mentioned, it a lot of trial and error. The kit comes with more than enough line, so don't try to get too perfect the first cut. Make them a little too long and just trim them back until they fit. NOTE: the fittings which come with the kit have to be crimped on once you get them all properly pondered and positioned. Straight fittings don't matter how you position them prior to crimping. But any kind of curved fitting (the majority of them) must be marked when everything is fitting well so they are crimped at the right angle. I marked each fitting-to-hose connection with a sharpie and made two marks on each one. That gave the AC shop a dual reference point prior to crimping. This is one of the most important ways to prevent swearing, breaking things, cursing your mother, kicking the dog or other things...if the fittings aren't crimped at the right angle you will hate it.
5. In the second pic, the hinky looking grey sheet metal thing is the mount for the VA hot water valve. The thing is ridiculous looking and offers no obvious way to bolt it to anything. So now it's hidden and supported properly. I may make a less amateur looking mount later...or not.
6. Third pic show the underdash orientation of the thicker hose, threaded on to the firewall fitting and to the connection on the evaporator. This is a stubby line, so, again, get the angled fittings crimped correctly or be sad.
7. Last pic is a little hard to understand, but shows the smaller under dash liquid line threaded on to the firewall fitting, curving about 180 degrees and attaching to the evap smaller fitting. It is in annoying proximity to the heater tubes, but I was able to convince them all to cohabitate. This evap connection was a pain to get started by hand, but you do not want to put a wrench on it until you are positive it is hand started.
8. NOTES: The heater tubes which come with the kit are straight. They both need to be 90 degrees. So I had to buy those. I suppose you may be able to buy them instead of the straight ones, but I'm not sure how VA handles that. There are a couple other fittings which have to be purchased to replace the ones in the kit. I'll get to those in the last chapter of the installation under the irritations and weirdnesses article.
