Yea, I remember when I gutted the box out of mine many moons ago. It was such a pain it never went back in. I will have no heat but I will have AC. It's gonna be a small remote control window unit I have been saving to put in the back.
ouch.... when i did mine i had it out , fixed, and back in in a day.... but i had to take a crap load of Tylenol for back pain and a migraine that night.
Ah, screw all this dumpster diving. Just ordered a universal 14x21" parallel flow condenser. After plundering the Pull-A-Part for a few hours earlier, I just can't see finding one that's the right size AND has the right fittings AND they're in the right place AND it's in good shape, and preferably parallel flow, when most of what's out there is round tube. I must have looked at a hundred cars or more and I just don't see it happening. I will probably have better results with this new condenser anyway, but it sure sucks to have to wait for it to get here...
That'll give you time to do the 4th with the family then put the rest back together with out rushing.
Wait till my wife catches me in the garage tomorrow (um, today. later) working on my dash. I'm supposed to be orchestrating a family get together and grilling, chillin the watermelon, slicing it, go to the store for stuff... I finaly get motivated and I can't do anything
That's why I didn't fix mine for 2 years, I was dreading the job! Now at least I have heat, still looking for some of the underhood stuff for my hybrid system.
I sure did break that thing right off, man. You warned me, I listened, but I failed to look for it before I pulled the box! It's alright though, I'm almost glad that happened. Clearly it was brittle to begin with, and the break forced me address it. I think I've repaired it stronger than before. A few layers of fiberlass cloth, a little sanding and some flat black paint... You'd never know it was broke. Also took care of two little cracks. Otherwise, the box was in great shape. So the weekend is over, and here's the current status of the project: Almost everything inside the firewall is done. The AC box and its controls are mounted, connected and functioning. All vacuum actuators work fine. Blower motor works great! Quieter and stronger than the one I took out. In fact, when I tested the heater it works better than my old one ever did. The ductwork is all done. As you can imagine, I had to repair a couple of places in the cloth ducts. I'm not ashamed to tell you, I did it with duct tape. I believe duct tape is a perfectly correct and respectable thing to put on a duct, after all. ( I'll bet less than 1% of all duct tape ever sees a duct...) I did at least use black, and it's not visible. Eventually I will replace it. Really the only things left to do inside the car are to mount the vents, mount the dash tray, then drill a hole and attach the drain tube. Also need to paint the AC control panel bezel black. (Here's a tip... Rustoleum makes a paint for plastic and vinyl. Take your can of that, and throw it in a bonfire, shoot it, or just put it in the trash. It makes a horrible mess just like every other Rustoleum product I've used. You'd think I would learn. Fortunately though, if you don't like the way it sprays, give it half an hour and it will peel off clean in one sheet. Such crap.) And what's holding me up on the lower dash tray? Well... There was black shag carpeting attached to it. It pulled off easy, except for a few strips of hairy glue. I was told that was super glue, so I decided to try acetone. Guys, if I save even one person the headache then it was worth writing this... Do not, for any reason, put acetone on the dash tray. You will end up painting it. And so I've got to do that before I can install it. Now moving on under the hood... I got my firewall cut and drilled where it should be, put factory fill plugs in the old heater core holes, and on the old mounting holes for the original heater box, I plugged those with body fasteners. Looks clean I think. (Doesn't look like a hack job anyway, and that was my only goal.) I've mounted my new vacuum canister, which has only one outlet. From that outlet I have a hose with a T fitting. One side goes to the firewall for the HVAC controls, the other goes to engine vacuum by way of a check valve. The old heater control valve I got with the AC parts was frozen. I unstuck it, but it still didn't move under vacuum so based on Mashori's experience, I bought one for a '77. Works fine. Still left to do... Clean up and install the compressor, crank pulley, hoses, dryer and condenser.
If you already have a decent heater control panel but it's not ac, its easy to make it so. I wrote a tech article on how to switch the bezels around. I put it in Shorthorns but I dont think it got put here on the message board. I have it in PDF if your interested.
Sounds like you were plenty busy. Acetone and plastic don't get along well. I have used it to etch plastics prior to painting. I would bet that Krylon Fusion would work well on the control panel. I have had good luck with it so far.
Interesting... Sure, wouldn't mind seeing that. That way I'll have one less thing to paint, and when I give the heater parts to Nathaniel I can give him a panel in the right color. I feel like I'm in the home stretch! The hard parts are done, the delicate parts are done... I just have to clean, paint and bolt on a few (comparatively) simple things and wait for my new condenser to get here! Well good. That means it ought to at least take the paint well... Krylon Fusion for that too, you think?
Couple of pics... Sorry, I would have more but my iPhone was being used for music instead of picture duty this time. Very inconsiderate of me, I know, but I do so much better on projects like this when I've got music. First pic is mid-swap, ready for the AC box. Second pic is of course the AC box... You can see some of my repairs if you're looking for them.
