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v8 vega with air conditioning?

PostPosted: Mon Jun 04, 2007 2:51 pm
by peterpan
has anyone put a v8 in a vega with ac and hooked it up to work

i got another 72 that the front end has been hacked up

and a 74 wagon parts car that has ac i am thinking about cutting the whole front end off at the a pillers and across under the seats and putting the 74 wagon frame and fender section in the 72

so i can have air conditioning and fix the frame section all in one

but i need to know if the heater/ac box on the firewall will clear the v8 and what to use to mount the ac compressor to the v8

PostPosted: Mon Jun 04, 2007 4:59 pm
by vegatex
I did it in my V-6 Turbo--same thing. You need to use the Monza set-up if you aren't making your own.

PostPosted: Mon Jun 04, 2007 6:37 pm
by peterpan
monza set up you mean compressor brackets or the housing that bolts to the fire wall

PostPosted: Mon Jun 04, 2007 7:14 pm
by bugdewde
He means the firewall stuff. The "V"-configured engines won't clear the Vega A/C stuff on the firewall.

It can be done with modification to the Vega stuff ....... see article here. It's only a pic put it can give you an idea if you want to attempt it. http://lotus.www.50megs.com/Vega-swap.htm It's a couple pages over, I think.

Most just swap in the Monza(2nd gen) V-6 or V-8 HVAC stuff. That's what I hope to do. I have the under dash and firewall housings but need all the rest.

PostPosted: Tue Jun 05, 2007 8:52 am
by peterpan
will the monza stuff bolt to the vega fire wall i know the non ac stuff will but not sure on the ac stuff

i have the 74 wagon with ac and it still had a little pressure in the system

my thoughts right now are to cut the front off the wagon and weld it to the hatch that will fix all my front end problems at once

and it will be the ac firewall

if the monza v6 stuff will work the junk yard has a few v6 monzas maybe with ac in ok shape

RE: HVAC with a V8 in a Vega

PostPosted: Tue Jun 05, 2007 3:31 pm
by vegadad
peterpan,
What you will need to do is trace the outline of the hole left in the donor car's firewall to make a pattern for your 72' firewall. Use the template to mark your car and cut carefully. Then mount all the firewall mounted hardware interior and exterior. Make sure that when you disassemble the system from the donor car that you seal all open holes, hoses and such. Don't want any dirt or anything else in your system. That should give you a good start.
Lenny Dower accomplishe such an install on his 1976 Vega Panel and let me tell you it looks like a factory install. Word of advice, make sur all your connections are tight and check them every once in awhile. Good luck on your project.
john b. (in Missouri)

PostPosted: Tue Jun 05, 2007 4:11 pm
by vegatex
Same as what I did on mine. Here's some pictures that may help.

PostPosted: Tue Jun 05, 2007 4:26 pm
by greg72
I want to put a/c in my 72 Vega , but i would prefer to use an aftermarket under(behind) dash system . I am only looking to do this to keep the engine bay clutter down..... the car has a pro street theme with only the engine in the engine bay.

Has anyone tried this on an h-body?

I am concerned that even the smaller ones won't fit :lol:

PostPosted: Tue Jun 05, 2007 6:18 pm
by bugdewde
Here's the hole that was in my Vega's firewall when I got it. It had the under dash A/C stuff from a Sunbird in the back seat.... must have been installed at one time.......
Image

Image

Sorry for the poor quality...... not from my new camera.

PostPosted: Tue Jun 05, 2007 7:28 pm
by EagleFish
This question has been asked so many times on the old Yahoo h-body sites, V8monza and now here.

so a couple of comments on this project:

1) Let's use the term 1st gen and 2nd gen h-body

1st gen refers to all Vega, Astre

2nd gen refers to all Monza, Skyhawk, Starfire, Sunbird

So, any 2nd gen donor car can be used for the interior/exterior a/c components.

2) This is not a difficult swap!

Think about it? The factory used the 1st gen firewall stampings only with a few modifications.

So you will be using all factory components. The only really hard part is the time required to perform the swap.

We need to create a depository to save all of this information for future use.

John (John and Richard)

PostPosted: Wed Jun 06, 2007 8:47 am
by peterpan
i agree on the place to save info like this cause i have never thought about putting on my 72 so i never payed any attenion to it

but now i have the new 72 that i would like to put ac on so now i need the info

how different is the vega ac firewall from the monza one

witch vega fire wall will be easier to put the monza ac stuff on ac or no ac i have bolth i could swap what ever one is easier

PostPosted: Wed Jun 06, 2007 9:48 am
by vegatex
EagleFish wrote: This is not a difficult swap!
(John and Richard)


No, this isn't a difficult swap at all. Instead of using the terms Gen 1 and Gen 2, I'm going to use the terms in my '79 Monza service manual. Gen 1 (Vega body) is referred to as "HM-15". Gen 2 (Monza body) is referred to as "HM, HR". Basically if you have the blower box, heater and A/C box from any HM, HR donor car, and the black firewall plate from an early HM, HR car you can modify the firewall of your HM-15 to accept the A/C system from an HM, HR car. You can see the plate in the picture of the yellow Sunbird before I removed it, and ifyou look carefully, you can see it mounted in my Vega on the firewall in the picture with the drier canister.

To make it easier, I uploaded scans from my Service Manual to the h-body.org FTP site. Follow this link:

http://dave.h-body.org/Cooling%20and%20 ... nditioning

and download what you need. I used the HM-15 and HM, HR terms not to be more confusing, but because that's what they use in the Service Manual, so it will make it easier to understand when you are reading it.

Hope that helps,
Dave

PostPosted: Wed Jun 06, 2007 10:53 am
by vegatex
Files are there, but the link is bad. Dr. Dennis is helping me fix it...standby.

Dave

The files are too big to upload here so we have to do it this way.

PostPosted: Wed Jun 06, 2007 11:38 am
by vegatex

PostPosted: Wed Jun 06, 2007 2:19 pm
by EagleFish
Dave,

Nothing wrong with your approach on terminology. I suggested the Gen 1 & @ terms because a lot of h-body people are familiar with them and they are simple, non-confusing terms.

My points being:

1) to make sure that someone wanting to perform and a/c upgrade does NOT think that the only car you can use as a donor is a Monza.

2) that the differences between the 1st and 2nd generation h-body cars are not that extensive.

John (John and Richard)