Cleaning up the little bits....

Got back from Christmas with the in-laws and had a couple hours to kill. Just enough time to remove and clean up some rear bumper pieces. With each item sandblasted, they'll get a coat of POR15 before reassembly.

Licence plate light, apart and ready for the balster -

Into the sandblaster, which incidentally, just recieved an update after 5 years of heavy use. New gloves and a re-charge of dessicant pellets in the dry-air tube (on the wall to the left) make for a much more useful machine.

                              Parts come out stripped of paint, rust and most undercoating -

Crusier Camaro - AC controls retrofit and pulleys

With the mechanical sliders removed and replaced with electronics, 

the head unit was re-installed in the dash

New AC vent above the new electronic controls -

One last hole in the shaved firewall was required - this one for the AC kits wiring  harness....

To mount the AC pump on the stroker engine, an entire serpentine kit, 

complete with March Pulleys, was purchased. 

Ready to install:

No sooner had I gotten the Alternator out of the way to pull the first pulley and I was stalled...

The aluminum fasteners holding the water pump pulley to the steel housing mount galled, welding themselves to the threads, necessitating me wasting an hour - plus, to drill them out, one size bit after the next so as to avoid ruining the threads....

After removing 'most' of each fastener, I ran a tap through each one, just to be sur the threads where clean and sharp and no bits of the old fasteners where left behind....

            Oh well. MERRY CHRISTMAS to all my readers - and we'll get back at it on the 28th!

VINTAGE AIR Install - continued....

                      With the number of hoses involved in this install, there isn't room for much else!

The middle plate gets modified for a center AC outlet - 

 Ouch! Always hate to cut original stuff!

Some foam to seal it all together - 

         

  I think I'll see if the owner would prefer it trim black. Looks a little cheesy right now...

            

    Then the retrofitting of the controls - from manual to electric. Hours of fiddling...

Vintage Air has its own faceplte for the controls, but I just couldn't replace the beautiful OEM stuff...

Which would YOU choose?

 

After a lot of fiddling, carefully following instructions and getting everything switched over to electronic control, it was ready to go back in....

                             The new unit is just a hair too big. So much for OEM replacements....

             Back up front, the Matrch Serpentine Pulley kit will allow the addition of the AC Pump -                                                                                                                                                                

BLING BLING!

The AC system calls for heater hoses attaching to the water pump and intake manifold. I bought the right nipples and inserted each into the Edlebrock intake manifold with a swath of thread sealand on each...

  But now the rad hose connector is wrong.... so, I'll have to source some type of replacement neck.

Vintage Air Installation - Part 3

After suspending the Vintage Air box from it's upper mount points, 

I carfeully marked the spot where the AC tubes are to exit the cabin through the firewall - 

It took nearly 5 attempts to ensure the marks where dead on. 

With the box removed, the marks are evident. the upper mark is a mounting bracket hole.

Once I was sure everything was in the right place, I first used the drill to mark the corners,

Then the air saw to cut the hole - 

The air box was then removed and the holes cleaned up. It took a couple tries to slowly open up the opening enough to get the pipes to fit without hitting the edges.

With everythin in place, the cover plate makes it look nice and neat.

Moving to the engine compartment, I drained the coolant into a clean bucket so that I could remove the water pump and intake manifold coolant nipples.

The rad hose is blocking acccess to the intake water jacket entry. I need this one for one of the heater hoses..

The water temp gauge sensor is located on the sde that would be best for the heater hose attachement. I think I'll re-route this to the drivers side, which will make things as well-laid as possible.

And while I generally try and think things through so as to lay everything out as logically as possible, not everyone thinks  - or can make it work - like that. Case-in-point is the airbox having all three vent outlets exiting from the same spot....

meaning that the hose for the passenger vent has to be bent right around to get to that side.....

Til next time...