These are some of the issues I ran into attempting to put this Classic Auto Air (CAA) A/C kit onto a 1971 Camaro that was originally equiped with A/C. The kit was designed for a non A/C car, so I had to do some significant modifications to the kit and the car to make it work. 1.) The control panel is very different between a factory A/C car and a non A/C car. Adapting the factory 1971 A/C control panel to work would have been possible, just a lot more work than doing the following: a. I found a late 2 nd gen A/C control panel which I was able to modify by simply adding another arm and mounting bracket to the bottom side (parts were found browsing the shelves at the local hardware store). Here s the finished product. Here s the arm by itself:
Here s the modified A/C control panel arm: The critical dimensions of the custom arm are basically the same as the factory arm on the other side.
Here are some additional photos of the control panel.
2.) CAA has you perform some assembly with the main box outside the vehicle (prior to installing it). Part of the assembly is to route some wiring around the box. Being an anti squeak and rattle fanatic, I made sure to use hold down clamps as much as possible. I drilled a few holes here and there to secure the clamps. IF you do this, BE VERY CAREFUL WHERE YOU DRILL. MAKE ABSOLUTELY CERTAIN YOU WILL NOT BE DRILLING INTO INTERIOR HARDWARE!!!!! I thought I was careful, but one of my screws protuded too far into the box and prevented the air diverter door from closing all the way. Here are some photos of the pre install assembly:
3.) Being a factory A/C car, my Camaro has a very different firewall opening than a non A/C. It made the CAA provided block off plate unuseable (although the blow motor block off plate did work just fine). I had to fabricate a custom block off plate. Here s what I did to get that going. First I cut the firewall to mimic a non A/C car such that the CAA main box would interface to the vehicle properly. I basically searched the internet and found a photo of non A/C firewall. From there I took some very general dimensions and eyeballed it to my firewall. I figured I could always make my firewall block off plate cut to fit whatever size hole I make. a. Here s where I marked out the cut line. After that I just used some sheet metal snips and cut along the line. b. Using some cardboard, I cut out a template of the block off plate. Took about two attempts before I got it just right. I had to temporarily mount the main air box in order to layout the holes.
c. I then transferred the template dimensions onto a piece of.050 aluminum sheet. Then once again, used sheet metal snips to cut the aluminum out. Here s the bare aluminum piece on the firewall: d. Since I was going for as much a factory look as possible, I painted it semi flat black:
e. After drilling the mounting holes, the block off plate was done.
f. On the back side of the block off plate, I put some sound deadener material (roofing tar) and a layer of aluminum foil. 4. With the block off plate complete, I was able to complete the main air box install.
a. It was a tight fit in some areas. Particularly the defrost hoses: b. All in all though, the hoses routed pretty decently.
c. Since my center air duct location is occupied by gauges, I didn t need those output ports on the air box. I simply bought some rubber 1.5 diameter pipe end covers and installed them on the defrost output ports. Fit like a glove. 5. Another issue I had was the ECM in EFI system. Since I always had my ECM mounted to the factory A/C distribution box, I wanted to maintain that mounting scheme. Again, at the local hardware store, I found some brackets and mounted them to the CAA airbox. Again, being very careful about where to drill holes. a. Here are the brackets. The ECM has two plastic locating pins on one end that fit into holes I drilled into the top brackets. The studs on the othe side of the ECM then slip into the U grooves in the bottom brackets. It s a very tight squeeze behind the glove box, but it works.
b. Here s the ECM mounted on the brackets:
6. About the only thing that went per the instructions was the condenser/accumulator installation (aside from the fact that I had to relocate my oil cooler). a. Here s some photos of the finished install:
7. Routing the hoses to the compressor was another issue. Since I have a 1990 Camaro serpentine setup, I opted to use a factory 1990 Camaro compressor (which meant I had to order the CCA kit less their compressor). This also meant I had to order their special adapter to interface the CCA hoses to the factory compressor. Unfortunately, the CAA supplied high side hose end at the compressor wouldn t work with this setup. It forced an extremely tight 90 bend on the high pressure hose. While it probably could have functioned that way, I found it unsatisfactory. A trip to the local radiator/air conditioning shop produced a 180 hose end that pointed the hose back to the radiator support such that the hose had a straight shot back to the condenser fitting. a. Here s a photo of the compressor installed (note the high pressure port red cap spliced into the line)
That s about it for the install. Here are some photos of the finished product: