My "77 has 70K miles with a factory A/C that has never been run for over 12 yrs. I purchased this car a couple of months ago and am contemplating a vintage air system but they don't make one for that yr. My options:

1. Replace the original compressor or Sanden Model and accumulator and change over to the R134 and hope for the best.(Also might have to replace the condensor and evaporator.)
2. Buy the 1976 Vintage Air System and modify it to fit the my '77.
3. Replace heater core since they are very prone to leakage while installing a/c system.
4. That being said does Vintage Air offer a compete A/C and Heater system that can be installled, so I can bypass the exiting heater (Remove)

Thanks!!!

 

have you used gauges on the system to determine it is empty and actually has other issues?
you can still buy r12 for about $25 a can

 

Option 5. Why not take the car to any automotive AC shop and let them take a look at it?

 

 

First leak test the heater core and evaporater. If they hold pressure, dash and firewall arent on the to-do list. You can fab a pressure tester with a gauge from a pool or welding place, tire valve from parts store and hose and tees from home depot.

 

I have a 77 that I installed a Vintage Air system into. (Search Vintage Air AC installed in a 77 for my write-up). My adventure began with a bad R4 compressor. I have never had good luck with the R4 POS so I bought new mounts and a Sanden 508. I also replaced the condenser with a large multi-path generic. My intention was to replace the VIR valve with an adaptor to convert it into a modern orifice system. After struggling with this, I purchased the interior kit for a 76 (PLEASE NOTE that you can not use the 77's existing controls - you must purchase VA's 3 **** controller. This in turn required an entirely different system than that supplied with the 76 kit. Talk with VA - they are good people and will help you.) I made a number of other mods during installation, mostly on routing the ductwork 1) I fabbed a new plenum for the upper center ducts that allowed the air to center outlets from the left side, giving much more room for routing, and 2) I ran the ductwork for the left lower outlet under the column (using an oval plastic duct from VA) to allow me to fab a branch to the lap outlet near the center stack. If you want to discuss, PM me.

 

The aftermarket "bolt-in" systems I've seen for sale do not offer retrofits after 1976. Since the environmental controls changed in 77, and the new systems are electrically vice vacuum controlled, conversion is not straight forward. As Rotonda indicated, you cannot use your existing controller because of this. There have been numerous posts on how to improve the existing a/c system with advice ranging from installing a parallel flow condenser to upgrading the system with a Sanden compressor to insulating the evaporator box. Most posts I've read along these lines ended up with folks being very please with their factory a/c system after some of the suggested improvements were made. I would try this route before I replaced the existing system.

The aftermarket systems seem more geared towards corvettes that were originally delivered without any a/c. I have no doubt they are better and more reliable than the factory system, but part of that is because the kits contain some of the improvements mentioned above. The reliability of electrical controls is hard to beat, but the expense associated with these kits is hard for me to justify based solely on that improvement. My 79 did not have air conditioning and after looking at several after market options, I decided to go with installing the factory system and incorporating new technology such as parallel flow condensers, etc. There were two reasons I decided this: I did not want to change the interior look of the car with an aftermarket environmental control and vented box hanging below the dash, and I already had the car apart for restoration and could make the firewall, cowl, and kickpanel modifications required for the factory a/c.

Just one opinion.

MajD