So when I started driving the bird I noticed that not only did it not have cold ac but it didn't really have heat either.. In fact even with the fan on full blast the air would just barely trickle forth from the vents. I decided that it was time to investigate that.
I removed the heater side of the box off the firewall along with the heater core. Then I removed the evaporator from the housing to remove the last piece of the housing. In the picture below the fan resides behind the circular looking housing at the left, the air blows from that housing into a second housing differentiated by the black tar tape on the left (that had long since fallen off) and the evaporator core on the right. The evaporator core is what is on the end of the two black hoses coming into the picture from the right. The last piece I removed was the piece between the fan housing and
New tar tape, some new paint. I even took the opportunity to restore the heater hoses with new heater hose and restored metal piping from the water pump to the heater core
Between those blocking the passage and the sealant missing between the housings there was little wonder why I didn't have any air moving.
I was having a hard time getting one of the nuts started on the very bottom of the box (right up there between the bottom of the firewall and above the transmission, behind the engine) so I removed the passenger side inner fender well to get at things better.
I did finally get everything put back in there and I now have air. I discovered upon removing the inner fender well that the sheet metal that makes up the front most portion where it changes from wheel well to battery tray was all but completely gone. Last time I was at Anderson's wrecking I took the camera along to take some shots to help remind me what all was there. This past weekend I popped down there and pulled the wheel well from a doner car... not perfect either of course but WAY better than what I have.
Well so I do have air moving (and heat) but no cold air.
NO compressor?? Yup..
I jumped from the battery to the clutch on the compressor to see if it was working and it was.. I checked the power lead going to the clutch on the compressor with everything set for cold and didn't have any power there at all. I chased the wire back from the compressor and in through the firewall and everything was good there. No breaks. It was either checking the connections at the controls or chase the wire through the dash and one is way easier than the other so the controls were next. With the key set to acc and the control set for cold I stuck a finger up in there and managed to jiggle the right wire because I heard the solenoid snap closed on the clutch. So it was a bad connection on the spade connectors from the heater/acc controls to the wire harness.. kinda amazing.. you would think that you might have intermittent operation.. but nope this was just flat nothing.. anyway I pulled the pigtail that goes from the wire harness to the controls to pay some attention to the connectors and plan to get everything back together this weekend and give it a try. The compressor probably hasn't been spun in years and years.. Either it will work or I will burn the belt off. Place your bets now folks.
