I have pretty much exhausted the steps I can complete indoors without access to the car. It was a fairly warm day so I decided to start working on the engine compartment portion of the installation.

I started with the condenser installation. The first step requires drilling a 1.25 ” hole in the radiator core support. The kit includes a template to help with marking the hole location. It turned out that the location of the hole matched up with an indentation that was already present in my factory radiator support. I used a step drill bit to drill out the hole.

Once the hole had been made, I installed 4 j-clips over some existing holes in the core support, installed the condenser, and then bolted it in to the j-clips using the supplied bolts and washers. Once the condenser was in place I test fitted the radiator. Unfortunately it came into contact with the condenser retaining bolts that I had just installed. I’m not sure if the radiator was damaged or not when this happened , but it does have some marks where it was touching the condenser bolts. I was able to space the radiator out a bit farther from the core support and it no longer comes into contact with the condenser bolts. I may remove the radiator and have it pressure tested again, but I haven’t decided for certain yet.

The next step was installing the hard lines that go through the radiator core support. The driver’s side horn interfered with the installation so I removed it temporarily. I installed new O-rings on the hard lines and bolted them into place. I had to do some minor tweaking of the hard lines to get everything lined up and into position. Then I could reinstall the horn, rotating it a bit from it’s factory position so that it would clear all the hard lines.

Here are some pictures showing the condenser hard lines and the hole in the radiator support.

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Now I was ready to move on to the compressor install. The new compressor bracket uses one of the water pump bolts and two existing bolt holes in the factory cylinder heads. Since the two holes in the cylinder head had never been used I took the time to run a bottoming tap through the holes to make sure the threads were clear. Once the threads were cleaned out the bracket bolted right into place. I used some thread sealer on the water pump bolt. Then I mounted the compressor to the bracket and tightened it down.

Finally I reinstalled the fan and fan clutch. The original fan alternator belt still fits fine. I had a spare alternator belt, so I tried it on the compressor. No dice, it was quite a bit too short. Now I need to order a new belt. I plan to come back with a piece of string or ribbon so I can measure the length for the new fan belt.

Here are some pictures of the installed compressor.

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The Vintage Air kit includes a retrofit for the original non-AC heater controls that converts them from a cable system to electronic. Installation isn’t very difficult using the instructions and parts included with the Vintage Air kit. Once you have completed the conversion the controls will operate differently from the originals, but you will be able to control all of the necessary functions of the AC. After conversion the HEAT slider will control the blower speed, the TEMP slider will control the temperature, and the DEF slider will control the mode (AC, heat, defrost, or blend). The original blower speed switch is not used after the conversion.

The first step is to trim the cable converter actuator rods to length. The correct length is specified clearly in the instructions. I used some sandpaper to smooth the edges after I cut them to length. Once all the actuator rods were cut and the ends cleaned up I could work on attaching them to the controls.

Attaching the actuators is done one at a time, in the order specified in the instructions. For each actuator you install a clamp, connect the end of the actuator to the original heater control, and secure it with a push on ring. Then you locate the proper connector on the wiring harness using the color coded wires and connect to the actuator. Finally you dress the wiring using the provided tie wraps. I found the clamps a bit challenging to install as they require a bit of bending to get into place. But I was able to get everything installed without too much trouble.

Here are a couple of pictures showing the completed conversion.

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Once the kit is installed in the car there is a calibration process that must be followed so that the Vintage Air ECU can learn the range of motion of the controls. But I have a lot more work to do before I get to that step.

The cold weather has dampened my enthusiasm for working out in the garage, so progress has been very slow on the Vintage Air install. There are some steps in the assembly that I can complete inside my warm house, so I concentrated on those steps first.

I started with installing the brackets and drier on the condenser. First I needed to install the drier bracket on the front of the condenser. The instructions specified which way to orient the condenser (larger hose fitting goes towards the top) as well as which mounting holes to use for the bracket. Then I flipped the condenser over and installed the left and right mounting brackets, again paying attention to which mounting holes to use. Finally I installed the drier in the drier bracket using the two supplied clamps that go around the drier. There is a metal hose that I still need to install from the condenser to the drier. The instructions suggest waiting to install that hose until you are ready to install the condenser.

Here are some pictures of the condenser after I installed the mounting brackets and drier.

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With the condenser prepared, I moved on to the evaporator. First I installed the evaporator mounting brackets. There are two brackets for the rear and one for the front. The two rear brackets also have some studs to install. It took a bit of hand strength to get the studs installed but it wasn’t too bad.

Once the brackets were installed there are four metal hoses to install. Before installing them I needed to install O-rings on the ends of the hoses and lubricate them with the supplied mineral oil. I found that the hoses required some light tweaking to make them line up and come out with the correct spacing. I found one of the evaporator hoses especially difficult to get a wrench on to tighten. Hopefully it is tight enough that it won’t leak. I still need to wrap the hoses with the press tape that came in the kit, but wanted to post some photos of how it looked before I wrapped it.

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My next post will show how I prepared the original heater controls for use with the Vintage Air Kit.

After waiting patiently for a month, I received a shipment notification from Vintage Air. My A/C kit was on the way from Texas. Even with the Christmas holiday and the shipping delays attributed to Covid the kit arrived in just 4 days. This corresponded to three working days as the package was delivered on 12/26, the day after Christmas. The kit came packaged in three big heavy boxes.

I brought the packages inside and opened up each one of them. I actually remembered to snap a few photos as I opened each one. The first box I opened was the evaporator, compressor bracket, hoses, and associated hardware. Everything was pretty well wrapped, and instructions along with a packing list was included in each individual bag inside the box.

The next box to open contained the compressor. The compressor had a choice of finishes: natural, polished, or chrome. I chose the natural finish version as it was less expensive. Again, there was plenty of packing material to protect the compressor.

The last box contained the condenser, drier, hoses, brackets, and associated hardware. This picture was after I unwrapped some of the parts that were packaged on top of the condenser box.

After opening all the boxes I found some of the enclosed paperwork and started reading. The first thing that caught my eye was a warning that the purchaser must inventory the parts and notify Vintage Air within 15 days of any shortages. Since it is cold outside and my garage isn’t heated I knew it would probably be more than 15 days before I started the install. That meant I had to set aside some time now to inventory everything in the kit.

Once I did find the the time to inventory the kit, I observed that each box contain a packing list. Some of these packing lists showed that other small parts kits were included. Each of those small parts kits also included their own packing lists. I found this very helpful in ensuring that every nut, bolt, grommet, and O-ring was included. While inventorying the entire kit proved to be very time consuming, the very detailed packing lists left me feeling comfortable that all the parts were accounted for.

After the inventory was completed, there were two things I wasn’t expecting. The first was that the compressor bracket comes unpainted. None of the other brackets were bare metal. I can only assume that this was done so that you could apply whatever finish and color you would like to the compressor bracket. The other unexpected item was that the hoses in the kit only had crimped on ends at one end of the hose. The connectors for the other end of the hoses were included, but were not crimped on. I assume that they need to be cut to fit but I don’t know for sure yet. That also means that I will need to purchase or rent a crimping tool, or find a shop that can crimp them on for me. Probably not a big deal, just unexpected.

On the next warm day I plan to work on installing the condenser and painting the compressor bracket. On days where I don’t want to work outside I can still do some preassembly with some of the brackets and control conversion. But right now I’m tired from just unboxing and inventorying all the parts.

My mom always says that purchasing a gift for me is difficult. This year she said she knew what to get for me. I was intrigued because I really hadn’t asked for anything or given her any hints as to what I might like. (Now you know why she says I’m difficult).

This evening I visited with her for a few minutes (Covid concerns limited the duration of the visit). She gave me a package and requested that I open it right then so she could see my reaction. So I opened the package. This is a picture of what she gave me.

As you can see, it is a hand crocheted afghan with the Mustang running horse and tri-bar logo, with Ford and Mustang in the proper script font. It was obvious that she put a lot of effort into getting the details as accurate as possible. I can only imagine how much time and energy must have gone into creating this afghan.

Thanks Mom!

Back in 2013 when I redid the car’s interior I ordered an insulation kit from a company called Quiet Ride. The kit was quite expensive for what it was, and it included sound deadener and pre-cut insulation for almost every part of the car. When I insulated the car’s interior the heater box was installed. This prevented me from installing the firewall insulation at that time. Now that the heater box was removed I took the opportunity to work on the firewall insulation. The factory firewall padding was still partially in place on the firewall. It was simple to remove since after 50 plus years it was pretty much falling apart. That left me with a fairly clean and bare firewall to work with.

I searched through the insulation pieces I had left from the Quiet Ride kit and located what I thought must be the firewall insulation. At first I was unsure how it fit because all the other pieces I had installed had cutouts in them and it was obvious where they fit the car. This piece ended up fitting the passenger side of the firewall and only had a small cutout for what I thought must be the transmission tunnel. I eventually realized that the cutouts must be missing so that the piece could fit either the factory A/C cars or those with only factory heat.

I held the insulation against the firewall and marked where the blower motor and heater hose cutouts should be. Next I made the appropriate cutouts. Of course the new evaporator box will require some additional cutouts for the evaporator mounting points. I decided the best way to accommodate these cutouts is to hold the insulation up to the evaporator box before I install it in the car. That way I can mark the insulation and make the cutouts. Then I can install the insulation and the evaporator after I cut the insulation to fit.

While I was going through the couple of insulation pieces I had leftover in the kit I installed a couple of small pieces that fit around the edges of the trunk. I still haven’t identified any one piece that fits the driver’s side firewall, although I do have several small pieces. If I can’t find anything that fits or can be pieced together I plan to use some spare insulation I have laying around.

I’m not sure I ever expected to revisit the insulation after all this time, but I’m glad I’m finishing up the few areas that remained. That pretty much completes the insulation except under the hood and trunk lid. I don’t plan to insulate either of those as the insulation would be visible. Everything else is mostly hidden behind carpet and trim pieces.

So several years after insulating the car you might wonder if I feel it was beneficial. I believe it was. When I mention at car shows all the work I did with sound deadening and insulation I have received comments that there is no benefit in doing all that work and that it was wasted time. One way to demonstrate how well it works is to tap on the roof of the car and show there is only a muffled thud rather than an oil can effect compared to a car with no insulation and sound deadening. The interior of the car is much quieter and the temperature is more controlled than it was prior to adding the insulation.

As a part of the A/C installation I needed to remove the heater hoses, radiator hoses, and radiator. A visual inspection showed that everything appeared to be in good shape. The only minor issue I saw was that one of the radiator hose clamps didn’t match the other clamps. It was a more modern worm gear style rather than the Witek tower style. I don’t remember ever replacing it, so my best guess is that when the body shop removed the radiator to patch a rust hole in the frame that they replaced the clamp. I ordered a new clamp along with a couple of extra heater hose clamps since I knew I needed then for the heater control valve that comes with the A/C kit.

In keeping with my habit of overthinking things while I waited for the A/C kit to arrive, I decided to replace the heater and radiator hoses since I had them removed from the car anyway. I went ahead and ordered new hoses online. Then I turned my attention to the radiator. I had it re-cored a number of years ago and it really didn’t have that many miles on it since then, so I hoped it was in good shape. But I wanted to avoid having to drain the cooling system and remove the radiator more times than I needed to. I decided it was time to have the radiator cleaned out and pressure tested while it was out of the car.

In the past (since 1974 or so) I had always used one shop for my radiator work. It was called Looper’s and had the slogan “A great place to take a leak”. A quick search online revealed that they were no longer in business. I did some more Web searching and discovered that there aren’t that many radiator shops near me anymore. I eventually found one called Smitty’s about 35 miles away from me. I gave them a call and they said they could service my radiator. Just drop it off and it would be ready in a couple of days.

I dropped off my radiator on a Wednesday afternoon. I asked them to clean it out, pressure test it, solder a bracket that was loose, and replace the petcock which was pretty bent up. I received a call the following Friday morning that my radiator was finished and ready to be picked up.

One more item handled. I’m still anxiously awaiting the arrival of my A/C kit so I can get to work on the install. It’s getting a bit colder outside so my progress on installing the kit might be delayed. That depends on the weather and how much I mind the cold.

The air conditioning system I selected (Vintage Air) required me to locate and purchase two sheave water pump and crankshaft pulleys. I spent way too much time choosing what pulleys to purchase and install, as overthinking is something I’m very good at.

At first I planned to simply order the pulleys from CVF Racing as they sell matched sets with one, two, or three sheaves. I was all ready to pull the trigger on their two sheave pullies until I thought about what ratio I really needed to keep up the water pump and alternator speeds, as well as what diameter crankshaft pulley the Vintage Air system was designed for. The alternator and water pump would be no problem if I just bought the water pump, crankshaft, and alternator pulleys as a set from CVF Racing. The CVF crankshaft pulley is quite a bit smaller than the factory pulley. This meant that the A/C compressor would turn more slowly. This may or may not be an issue for the compressor that Vintage Air includes with their kit.

I decided to dig a little bit deeper to see what the car would have come with if it had factory air and to see if Vintage Air had any recommendations. Looking over the online instruction manual for the Vintage Air compressor bracket installation I found this note:

This bracket was designed using a 2-groove water pump pulley #C8AE-8509-B and a 3-groove crankshaft pulley D3TE-6312-AB.

Now i had some part numbers to research. I found this great site with information on many Ford crankshaft and water pump pulleys. Unfortunately that site didn’t have the pulley diameters for those particular part numbers. After further research I was able to find that my car, if ordered with factory air, would have used a C6AE-8509-A water pump pulley (2 sheave 5.86″ diameter) and C4AZ-6A312-B (3 sheave 6.20″ diameter) for the crankshaft pulley.

The Ford shop manual had some information regarding pulley ratios for Mustangs with and without factory air. Without factory air the ratio was 1.06:1. With factory air the ratio was listed as 1.34:1. This didn’t match with the diameters I stated above, but I decided to shoot for something between the two ratios. The CVF high flow pulleys had a ratio of 1:1 so the water pump speed should be acceptable with those pulleys. However the crankshaft pulley had a diameter of 5.4″, so the ratio for turning the air conditioner compressor would be slower than the factory pulleys.

I decided to attempt to match the factory pulleys as best as I could, although the diameters I ended up with were just a bit different. This would result in turning the water pump at a ratio of 1.15:1. I found that the water pump pulley I mentioned above is reproduced so I could just purchase it from one of the Mustang parts suppliers.

The crankshaft pulley is not reproduced. Since I have an aftermarket harmonic balancer (Professional Products 80009) on my car with bolt patterns and spacing that will work with the old or newer (post 1968) pulleys I had more choices. For the crankshaft pulley, I chose to use the C8AE-6312-E pulley, which came on many cars starting in 1968. It has two sheaves with a diameter of 6.75″. This gave me a ratio of 1.15:1 and I could retain the stock alternator pulley. I would probably lose a few horsepower turning the water pump a bit faster but I decided that was better than overheating or not charging at lower speeds since I do some driving in traffic and in parades. That pulley works with my balancer if I use the spacer that was included with the balancer.

I located a pulley on eBay and made an offer which was accepted. Here’s a picture of the pulley I purchased.

I did some preliminary testing for the inner pulley alignment using a laser pointer (cat toy). I can’t test the outer pulleys until the kit actually arrives and I install the compressor. To check the alignment, I placed the laser pointer in each of the pulley grooves, one at a time. For each pulley I spun it around until the pointer light was shining towards each of the other pulleys. The light from the pointer landed directly at the center of each of the other pulleys. That means the pulleys are aligned.

I tested and am able to use the stock fan belt to drive the alternator and water pump. This was unexpected as I changed the pulley diameters. When I receive and install the new compressor and bracket I will be able to test alignment of the outer pulleys and measure for belt length.

Since the pulleys are not included in the A/C kit I ordered I felt that there was some degree of risk in finding pulleys that would work with both my engine and the A/C kit. I feel that this risk has now been mitigated somewhat since I know I have good pulleys and pulley alignment. Time to move on to anything else I can complete while I wait for the A/C kit to arrive.

In a previous post I wrote that I was leaning towards adding air conditioning to my car. I have now decided that I will make the switch from heat only to heat and A/C. The next issue was that there were three main manufacturers of A/C conversion kits and I had to to choose which system to install. I did quite a bit of research, looking at online discussion forums and reviews, reading the instruction manuals, making calls to the individual manufacturers, and comparing prices.

Just in case you haven’t read my prior post, the three systems I am considering are:

• https://www.classicautoair.com/
• https://www.vintageair.com/
• https://www.oldairproducts.com/

From reading reviews and the Mustang forums I learned that all the systems were well liked by the people who had them installed on their cars. There was some mention of certain systems being more suited to a particular model year of Mustang, but nothing really definitive on that. So based on reviews there was no clear winner. The good news was that it seemed there was no loser and that all the systems are well designed and work well.

I did some online searching with the Mustang parts vendors to compare prices. According to the manufacturers web sites all the prices were within a few hundred dollars of each other. The Classic Auto Air system was the most expensive at the time I researched, but not enough more to make me rule it out. The Vintage Air system was the least expensive, and was available from more vendors than the other systems. I also compared what additional parts I might need to purchase as that also affects the price. The Vintage Air system left it up to the purchaser to source the crank and water pump pullies. The Old Air system included a crank pulley but not a water pump pulley. I was never able to get a definitive answer as to which pullies are included for the Classic Auto Air system as I could never get through on the phone to their sales people. I would wait on hold for a period of time and then I would be disconnected. This happened multiple times, which didn’t speak well for their customer service.

I obtained the installation manuals for each of the products so that I could attempt to compare how difficult the installations were. They were all fairly similar. There were some differences in regards to modifications that were needed to install the hardware, but no really big differences. There were two things that stood out for me. The first is that the Vintage Air manual instructs you to remove a brace from the dash by the glove box. My concerns is that this might weaken the structure enough to cause some rattles, although I don’t know that it would cause any issues. The second item is that I felt that the Classic Auto Air instructions were the clearest and easiest to follow, at least for me. This pleasantly surprised me because from reading the forums there were a number of complaints that the instructions were lacking or unclear. Apparently Classic Auto Air has updated their instructions to address this complaint.

At this point I still didn’t have a clear winner. It was now time to compare features. As far as the controls go, each system adapts the existing heater controls to an electronic control system. Both the Vintage Air and Old Air systems had infinitely adjustable fan speeds while the Classic Auto Air system had fixed fan speeds. Not a big deal but I’m at the point of picking nits now. The Vintage Air evaporator case is sealed and the parts inside are not serviceable by the end user. The Classic Auto Air and Old Air systems were serviceable. The one big standout for me was that the Old Air system didn’t appear to provide floor heating vents. For people in areas where it doesn’t get that cold it probably wouldn’t be an issue but it was enough for me to rule out the Old Air system.

That still left me with the Classic Auto Air and Vintage Air systems, with no clear winner. At this point i let price be the deciding factor. With the current Black Friday sales going on, I was able to get the Vintage Air system for around $200 less than the Classic Auto Air system, and with free shipping as well.

I placed my order and was told I can expect the system in about 4 weeks. That should give me plenty of time to plan, study the installation manual, and find the pullies I need. I plan to discuss the pulley selection process in my next post.

When I bought this car in 1974 it was still pretty much original. That included the radio antenna. That was until some neighborhood vandals decided to break off the antenna mast. I went to the local Ford dealer and purchased a replacement. I immediately noticed that the original antenna had a round base and the Ford replacement kit had a rectangular base. The round bezel didn’t fit the replacement antenna, so I swapped out the original antenna with the round base for the new antenna with the rectangular base. That was around 1974 or 1975. That antenna remained in place until I repainted the car in 2013.

Here are what the two different bases look like.

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After the car was repainted I purchased a reproduction antenna with a round base as the rectangular bezel was corroded and I really wanted to put the car back closer to original. I installed the replacement antenna and thought I was done with it. However after a few years the antenna developed a loud rattle and would no longer remain extended.

I did some research and found that the rattle was a well known problem with no good solution. I was unable to find a new Ford round base antenna, and the only reproduction I could find that mentioned rattle cost 5 times as much as the other reproductions.

Since my replacement rectangular base antenna still functioned and did not rattle, I decided to purchase a reproduction rectangular base antenna and use the new bezel with the old antenna. The replacement antenna should be arriving tomorrow. I hope the bezel fits the old antenna as I’m not 100% certain that it is the same size as the original.