Advice on A/C

[r_biccum]

Im going to add A/C to my car for the hot summer months, looking for opinons on wich would be best, trying to hunt down original A/C parts and convert using those, or buy a ready made kit from a vendor such as vintage air and install that. I dont know how hard it would be to find the original parts, and the cost of converting to R-134. Thanks!

[BlueSS454]

If it's a 2nd generation car, the firewalls are different A/C cars vs. non A/C so that's a major problem if you want to use original parts.
I just finished collecting all the necessary parts to put the A/C back in my 69 which is an original A/C car.  The hardest parts to find are the suction/discharge hoses, and the evaporator core and/or heater box.  Everything else (condenser, liquid lines, dryer, expansion valve, compressor) you can get new and all parts are compatible with R12 or R134a.  I'll be charging mine with R134a maybe this Sunday since it will be warm enough to do so.

If you have an non A/C car, probably best to look into one of those aftermarket units like Vintage Air.

[Nacho-RT74]

if you want stock look, yes will need lot of stuff beside A/C engine bay parts itself, like matching pulleys set, and firewall mods or change from donor. Then also of course A/C inner parts... control... ducts and vents if you don't have them.

Original A/C system can work with 134a gas. Need just basic upgrades like compatible O rings, Hoses, Dryer desicant Gel, and PROBABLY some touch on expansion valve. I have a mopar muscle zine where states that with a seasoned old 12a hoses the hoses upgrade is not a need, unless they have leaks.

beside that to be sure clean the system and use the propper 134a compatible oil.

A nice upgrade will be a bigger radiator, if your one is small.

Stock parts will take time UNLESS you have around a complete donor parts car.

[Mike DC]

I've looked into the swap from a non-A/C car to the factory A/C setup, and it doesn't seem worth it.  I'd be willing to restore the factory setup on an original A/C car, but I wouldn't go to the trouble to convert a stock heater-only car to the factory setup.



Everything underhood and even the underdash stuff didn't look like it was worth chasing the original setup.  Maybe if it was a Chevy and the original setup was heavily supported by every parts store in America or something, but this is a Mopar and that's not the case.  The factory muscle-era Charger stuff isn't any easier to get parts for than any other weird aftermarket setup.  So IMHO you might as well just get a decent modern deal.  Easier to retrofit, nothing needs restoring first, lots of modern improvements, etc. 


The dashboard controls are so compact that any aftermarket deal would have to eat up space in some non-stock location.  So that's one area that might be worth pursuing a factory-type deal. (Classic Auto Air might be restoring/updating those things?)  Ditto with the vents, the aftermarket stuff is probably gonna hang under the dash in some uncool way so you might wanna get the factory vents setup.  The factory center-dash vents (above the ashtray) are very flimsy plastic crap though. 

 

[Rolling_Thunder]

My idea for my charger is to use the factory 6.1L air compressor, a vintage air evaporator, common drier, custom lines, a common condenser that fits the routing needs, aftermarket controls mounted where the factory center dash vents were but keeping the outside dash vents in tact. The center vents will be moved to underneath the ash tray....      in theory this should all work just fine - the only reason I did not use the factory stuff revolves around the fact it is ungodly hideous in the engine bay - I just like the cleaner look...   

My convertible satellite will probably get a complete factory set up -  just for the sake of correctness

[Corellian Corvette]

Classic Auto air I have been really happy with their stuff.

I can say first hand their engine-side kit works very well. I have a factory A/C car, but I didn't have any of the engine side components so I went with their upgraded kit. Everything fit as advertised, although I'm having some custom hard-lines bent but that's personal preference.

Looks like the setup for a non-A/C car is even better. You can download the instructions from their site to see what you are getting yourself into.

Looks like some holes will need to be drilled, but nothing major.

Good luck!