Classic Auto Air install issues, comments and pictures.

[guhfluh]

Well, GUESS WHO DIDN'T CALL ME TODAY AS THEY SAID THEY WOULD! Yep, Classic Auto Air. I didn't think the "engineers" would have any better ideas anyway, because right now I'd like to give the "engineer" who designed this and wrote the directions a High Five in the face.

I figured out exactly how I hurt my back last night. It was from fighting this piece of junk to fit in the dash with the brackets installed like they say to do. Now I have a scratched up truck, a scratched up HVAC box, gouged and bent evaporator core lines AND a hurt back. A word of advice: REMOVE THE THREE BRACKETS FROM THE HVAC UNIT BEFORE INSTALLING IT IN/UNDER THE DASH. You can then reattach the brackets and drill the holes in the firewall, etc that you need. Also: Get someone to help you. One more person is really needed to pull the heater hoses through the firewall, and hold one end of the bolt/nut to attach the unit to the firewall while you tighten the other side. They can also help hold it in place while you drill the holes, or vice versa.

Another piece of advice: DO NOT DRILL THE HEATER HOSE HOLES TO THE SIZE THEY STATE. They say to drill the holes to 1-3/8" in size. THE GROMMETS THEY SUPPLY ARE SMALLER THAN THE 1-3/8" HOLE SIZE THEY SAY TO DRILL(The grommet seems to measure about 1-1/4" from measuring it with my calipers. I had not tested fit in different hole sizes yet.). And even with the hoses installed, they are loose in the holes.

Also: When drilling the factory heater holes to a larger size, if you are using a hole saw rather than a drill bit, install the plugs that Classic Auto Air supplies in the kit from the engine side and drill the holes from inside the truck. The plugs give you a place for the pilot hole bit in the center to keep the hole saw from walking. The dash pad also does a good job of keeping the saw centered.

I took a few more pics:

[guhfluh]

Something else to note, I don't believe they supply anything to plug the factory bolt holes left over from the stock heater unit, and I don't believe they supply any type of grommet for the A/C drain tube to pass through the firewall. From experience, the drain tube either needs to be extended down vertically under the truck quite a few inches or the drain tube MUST be sealed to the firewall. Condensation WILL make its way back in the hole and flood your vehicle. The way they say to just stick the leftover tubing to the end of the fitting sticking straight through the firewall is asking for condensation to run back down the tubing and into the unsealed hole in your firewall.

I plan on using one of their left over heater hose grommets and a scrap piece of metal to find the right hole size(it seems to measure about 1-1/4" with my calipers). I may also change the type of tubing used from clear to black rubber for aesthetics. The clear tube will become nasty looking after a while and looks a little cheap. It will allow you to see any drain problems though.

[guhfluh]

The vent block off panel doesn't fit worth a darn. That's a pic of it. I don't have the energy to modify it right now.

[guhfluh]

One last tip for now: If your lines come prebent and precrimped, hook the lines in the fenderwell up to the evaporator lines and test fit them before drilling holes in your inner fender.

For who knows what reason, the small line for my inner fender came precrimped on both ends. The larger line came about 5 feet too long and wasn't crimped on the evaporator end. The small line is too long and/or bent at the wrong angles to fit well where they show to drill. The large line in the inner fender "should" fit well after I get it cut to the correct length and in the correct orientation.

The small line from the fender bulkhead inside the engine bay, to the drier came precrimped on both ends and fits ok, but that is the only one in my system that does. The two compressor hoses came long and uncrimped also, so they should be okay, but the hard line from the condenser to the drier hose doesn't fit and the hose from the drier to the condenser hard line doesn't fit either. If they had left ALL of the dang hoses for me to get aligned and crimped, this wouldn't be a problem, but since they don't seem to know what the heck they are doing, even the parts that AREN'T any different on a 1967 OR a 6 cyl truck don't fit correctly.

This will probably be the last update for a while. I leave for work for three weeks on Monday and don't feel like fooling with it tomorrow. I'm running a fever and my attitude towards this A/C system has turned sour, so I don't want my last day with my wife for a while to be tied up in this.

[Calfdemon]

Damn... There is another member on here that installed this system and his went in without a hitch. All of his parts fit right and he had no issues whatsoever. Now I am wondering what will be awaiting me when I dive in to those boxes.

Definitely keep us updated as everything you are doing here helps others when they try to partake the same project. Me being one of those...

[guhfluh]

I will, I'm trying to document the issues and add as many tips for others that I can. If I were to do a second install with everything I've learned, it would go in pretty easily.

I went to college for Mechanical Engineering, though its not what I do for a living, it makes me very meticulous and anal about everything I do. And when I find things that could have been designed better, but weren't because of cost cutting greed or outright laziness, it really gets me upset, and I will do whatever I can to correct the issues, even when others may see them as minor or a nonissue.

What member was it? The only one I saw paid to have his done.

[Calfdemon]

Since the search option on this forum is worthless, I am racking my brain to remember exactly what it was I read. I know that no one has documented the install like you are, and it is possible that the member I am thinking of is the same one you are talking about. He may have paid to have it installed, but he did not say anything about parts being wrong and I would think that any shop would at least tell the owner about any problems with the kit they experienced. Then again, maybe not...

But everything you are doing is helping me now and in the future and I will also document anything I find with my kit when I dive into it...

[guhfluh]

The one I'm thinking of, I *think* he has a white and blueish truck. A very clean one. In one of his pics, he shows where the shop drilled the core support to run the short hard line from the top of the condenser around the front of the core support, then back through the hole. You can see where they bent the condenser inlet line slightly forward to accommodate. The way his is run is NOT what Classic Auto Air shows in the directions. Classic shows the line to run on the engine side of the core support, somehow between the support and the radiator. Without looking through the directions, you would probably never know the difference, and it doesn't look like it will cause any problems in his truck, but its something to take note of and watch out for when installing yours.

I'll see if I can find his posts. The search function works well when it lets you, but it makes me so aggravated when it tells me I have to wait "a few minutes" to use it, even when I'm just trying to get to te second page of results.

*Search didn't work of course, but google did. The member I was thinking of is SANDHOG from Houston. He mentioned paying someone to do it and them having some issues with the compressor and condenser mounting, as well as having to relocate his radiator overflow.

[sargentrs]

*Search didn't work of course, but google did. The member I was thinking of is SANDHOG from Houston. He mentioned paying someone to do it and them having some issues with the compressor and condenser mounting, as well as having to relocate his radiator overflow.

Is this the read you're referring to? http://www.fordification.com/forum/view ... &sk=t&sd=a

[guhfluh]

Yep, that's the one I saw.