AC upgrade on my '64

[Yadkin]

I don't even have the engine work complete and I'm already planning my first upgrade: air conditioning.

The previous owner had an OEM AC controller in a box to replace the heat only unit on the dash, so I plan on using that. I've located an original AC vent and dash panel that I plan on using to make everything look original.

Under the hood and dash I really don't care about original or not, I just want it to work flawlessly and not make the engine difficult to work on. I plan on calling classic auto air and work with them on a set-up for the compressor, bracket, coils and hoses. It looks like they have a replacement plenum to carry the coil and it dehumidifies the defroster as well. That's obviously a desirable set-up.

This is a future project so I have plenty of time. I'd like to see what others have done here and maybe get some input on what works best.

[DKheld]

I'm in the finishing stages of adding "factory" A/C to my '60 that didn't come with it.

Don't know if you will run into as many problems as I encountered but here are some things that were different on the Squarebird and my be a problem.

The factory evaporator box that installs under the hood hits the brake booster and the factory/dealer bracket to change the booster location is made out of unobtanium. Had to fabricate my own (just time consuming). I guess the Flairbird plenum was moved under the dash?

The A/C compressor bracket takes up the space used by the coil so it has to be moved as well as finding the A/C style coil mounting bracket (old one doesn't work).

Had to fabricate my A/C ducts under the dash. The originals were made of that cardboard stuff and were impossible to find in good shape. Just shaped them out of flat sheet metal and covered them with Dynamat.

When adding the A/C compressor you have to add the bolt-on extra pulley to the crank (easy part). Then to match the new crank pulley the water pump pulley has to be changed which leads to the Power Steering pulley needing to be changed (another part that was hard to find) and the generator pulley had to be changed from a single sheave to a dual sheave. After getting all the pulleys right I found the original fan spacer would not fit on the A/C pulley so had to find the correct fan spacer as well. On the Squarebird the fan itself is also different (4 blade original to 5 blade w/ A/C).

I worked with Ron at Classic Auto air on my hoses - apparently the hoses are lined with Gold on the inside......at least the cost seemed like it.........heh.

What I thought would take a couple of weekends has been over a year............good luck on adding A/C to your car. Hope I can follow along and see that you didn't have any trouble.

Eric

[Yadkin]

Thanks Eric, these are exactly the problems that I want to avoid, especially the pulley situation. I'm assuming that both our cars have the same FE engine set-up.

Are you telling me that classic auto air didn't have the pulley configuration figured out?

From their picture it looks to me that the AC pulls off the crank where the power steering used to, and the power steering pulls off the AC.



My existing power steering bracket requires a stack of washers to line it up properly. I'm wondering if it shares a mount with the AC bracket and I'm missing a spacer.

As far as interference with the brake booster, on the '64-66 the plenum is accessed on the right side of the firewall, so that doesn't seem to be an issue. Here's their picture of that. It looks like they have a plate that replaces the existing and incorporates openings for the heater hoses.



I'm assuming I'll have to fabricate the air ducts. I figure I'll use flexible duct material from my local building supply store or find some 1/8" thick soft plastic sheet stock and put it together with aluminum blind rivets.

[DKheld]

Classic may have it figured out using their set-up for a 390 but I was trying to add mine using all factory parts......as if it were added at the dealership and the dealer ordered the parts (there was actually a factory "kit" to do this on the Squarebirds).

From the pic it looks like you are correct on the belt configuration for yours. Quite a bit different on the 352. If you have a flat PS pulley a dished one may work for you also rather the washers? That was one of the problems with mine. The one I bought was advertised as being for a Galaxie but it was exactly right. The factory/dealer kit instructions said to remove the old PS pump pulley and add the new one - problem is it didn't give a good part number for the new pulley - I think it was the same as the old part number.

The one for the Galaxie looks dished like this only a single sheave (snagged these pics form the web)


Instead of more flat like this one



The '60 A/C plenum is about where your air cleaner is on the outiside of the firewall so looks like your good to go there. Sounds like a good plan on the duct. I would suggest covering it with Dynamat, Fatmat, or something similar to cut down on noise transfer and help keep the cool in (or heat out of the ducts)


Sort of a before view and you can see that there is nothing on the firewall behind the air cleaner.


Then after when the evaporator box was added and the brake booster had to be moved out for clearance (this is where it is located on the Squarebird). Plus that meant extending the brake pedal rod too - yuck.




And then with the A/C water pump pulley added - fan hit the radiator (both this new one and the original). Had not added the 3rd crank pulley for the PS yet. It moves the PS belt from the front sheave to the the newer outer added sheave thus the need to go from a flat pulley on the PS pump to a dished one (no pics yet sorry). The A/C belt on mine will be driven off the water pump pulley which is why you need to add another belt to it (and to the generator).



Eric

[Yadkin]

Wow I can see where you had problems. Your plenum looks like it's entirely inside the engine bay while mine is entirely under the dash. This is shown on page 8 of the CAA instructions as the "Air Distribution Duct assembly".

Also my engine is much further back in the engine bay. I didn't realize there was such a huge difference between the Square and the Flair. I'm guessing that this change actually occurred in '61 with the Rocket.

The washers on my power steering pump are on one of the two attachment points. The pulley is flat.

[KULTULZ]

My existing power steering bracket requires a stack of washers to line it up properly. I'm wondering if it shares a mount with the AC bracket and I'm missing a spacer.

Yadkin,

I don't know if this will hurt or help but the period BIRD you have used two different pumps, one with AC and one WO. The one WO had a remote reservoir feed (mounted on left fender apron) and a unique mounting bracket. This was to clear the OEM compressor.

On the SANDEN installation shown, the PS pump seems to clear that style compressor.

I will ask Ray to post an MPC ILL showing the styles. Does your correct year SHOP MANUAL show the actual installation?

[Yadkin]

Yadkin,

I don't know if this will hurt or help but the period BIRD you have used two different pumps, one with AC and one WO. The one WO had a remote reservoir feed (mounted on left fender apron) and a unique mounting bracket. This was to clear the OEM compressor.

On the SANDEN installation shown, the PS pump seems to clear that style compressor.

I will ask Ray to post an MPC ILL showing the styles. Does your correct year SHOP MANUAL show the actual installation?

My (first printing) shop manual does not show the installation. It does show how to rebuild the compressor though. It's actually a two cylinder pump. It's so huge that it necessitates a different power steering pump.

[YellowRose]

AC upgrade on my '64

Here is the 1961-1964 Power Steering System Parts Break Out that Gary asked me to post for him. Hopefully, this will help. You can zoom in on it by using Ctrl + on your keyboard.

http://www.squarebirds.org/picture_g...%20Install.jpg

[Yadkin]

Thanks YR.

[KULTULZ]

KULTULZ Posted-

On the SANDEN installation shown, the PS pump (with attached instead of remote fluid reservoir) seems to clear that style compressor.

What I should have conveyed is that the non-AC PS Pump does not seem to be hindered with the SANDEN compressor style as compared to the OEM compressor...

My (first printing) shop manual does not show the installation. It does show how to rebuild the compressor though. It's actually a two cylinder pump. It's so huge that it necessitates a different power steering pump.

I am sending to Ray (poor Ray) an MPC ILL showing the AC FEAD install. This ILL used in conjunction with the previous PS install should provide enough info to make the changeover.

The AC mounting is unique to the 64 BIRD only (have to verify 65/66) and is different than the FEAD used on the full size 61/64 FE FORD.

(FEAD- FRONT ENGINE ACCESSORY DRIVE)

Also, the kit vendor would not profit from offering a complete FEAD for the BIRD changeover. That would have to be original parts as used adapting the SANDEN compressor to the original FEAD install.

***************************************************

FYI Also-

The PS Pump mounting brackets are different for the AC and non-AC installs.

64 BIRD- (W A/C) C4AZ 3A732-B
61/64 BIRD (WO A/C) C1SE 3A732-B

These may affect pulley(s) alignment.

[YellowRose]

AC upgrade on my '64

Here is the info that Gary sent me to upload. To zoom in on the MPC parts break out, push Ctrl + on your keyboard.

http://www.squarebirds.org/picture_g...20%28AC%29.jpg

Here are a couple of pix that Gary also sent. The first one is of a '64 Tbird Air Cleaner (Closed Emissions). The second one is of a '64 Tbird (Correct Resto).

[Yadkin]

An update, and a request for information.

I've got all the parts except the evaporator/ heat core.

I bought a kit through Nostalgic Air Parts. It comes with a small heater box designed to replace the large OEM box. Unfortunately it does has no way to connect to the OEM fresh air intake, so it just circulates stale air through the cabin. Yuck.

I pulled the box apart last night (it was glued together) hoping to salvage the evaporator/ heat core out of it and fit it somehow into my old box. That's not gong well.

It will be far easier just to get a OEM core from an AC car, but I have not been able to locate one. Also I'm not sure if the box is the same. Probably not since the controller for the AC car is vacuum controlled and mine is cable controlled.

Does anyone have a source for this part? Or do I need to have one custom made?

[YellowRose]

AC upgrade on my '64

Get in touch with The Bird House in Delaware, or the Bird Nest in Oregon. They both have parts cars and might be able to help. I would have said to also contact John Draxler at Thunderbird Ranch. However, he has not returned any of my phone calls or emails for months, nor anyone else's recently that I know of. So I have no clue what has happened with him. If anyone knows, please let me know.

[Yadkin]

Thanks Ray.

Since I posted I've done more research. It turns out a lot of parts from Mustangs 67-68 are similar, and may be interchangeable with a little tweaking, so that's a possible route with off-the-shelf (read: cheaper) parts.

But more importantly, the other thing I found out is that the 1960's OEM set-up is not what I want. As near as I can tell, in the Mustang heater box, the heat core and evaporator are separate and located in different sections of the box. The box is designed so that airflow is directed through the heat or through the evaporator.

In new cars they are the same core, with the evaporator mounted ahead of the heater portion, so the air goes through both. In this way the evaporator can dehumidify the air before it is heated, and the defroster is a lot more effective. In order to make this work though, the airflow has to be vertical, up through the coils, to allow condensed water to drop out. Otherwise it would flow into the hot portion and turn to steam.

I think the best/ easiest thing for me to do at this point is cut my old box after the fresh air intake and graft the new one downstream of that. That will give me fresh air and a good defroster.

[simplyconnected]

Steve, I'm in Michigan where it gets very cold. In summer, we get plenty of humidity because we're surrounded by lakes.

It never made sense to me, why on earth would they turn on the air conditioning compressor with defrosters when it's zero outside (and in the car). With that, desperately needed heat is duking it out with even colder air than outside. Where does the water go? There is none because ambient cold air is already dry.

For my classics, I prefer the old system. It doesn't waste copious amounts of energy, which always equates to wasted gasoline. - Dave