Vintage Air on a 64

[my first riv]

Did a search but no dice, has anyone installed Vintage Air in a first gen Riviera?

 

Mine has no parts of the original AC system and sourcing all those parts can get pricey!

 

I have found some Vintage Air kits but not sure how they would fit under the dash.

 

I've worked on a C3 Vette that had one of their kits in it and everything seemed to fit well and even worked with the original controls.

 

 

[Turbinator]

You are a lucky man to get AC to work on your Corvette.

I have a condenser and evaporator that was in my 63 and worked. I replaced the entire AC with alll new components I could get. A replacement STV WILL come from me, someone else OR a donor car. Some people use the STV Eliminator or by pass kit. I have the original compressor from the car an A6. It worked when I took it out. The 63 and I suppose the 64 is tuned for R12. You can convert to 134a, but supposedly R12 cools better.

im not trained in mechanics or refrigeration, but I stagger through with AC manuals and the forum. You might consider a new after market kit from Old Air. 
if you have a handle on AC I have the condenser, evaporator, compressor, and AC muffler at an attractive price. I cannot swear to the 63 to 64 compatibility. You’ll need hoses and evaporator box. If you are handy to save a lot of money doing it yourself. No mechanics in my area are interested in working on my AC.

Turbinator
 

[my first riv]

I've got experience servicing AC systems and in my opinion most of the wear items like compressors and soft parts like hoses and even condensers you are probably better off buying new. I think you avoid a lot of possible issues with leaks and parts near the end of their life span and then your right back to replacing parts dealing with charging the system again and can quickly snowball on you. I appreciate the offer of used parts though and don't want to seem ungrateful for the offer. I'm more interested in maybe an under dash kit or just buying all new components so I'm doing the job just one time.

[Turbinator]

Try Old Air, they are friendly and have been helpful to me 

Turbinator

[SwedeDownUnderR63]

Have a look at this:

 

[my first riv]

Thank you for the link, my search maybe wasn't clear enough to find this.

[TexRiv_63]

I did this conversion back in 2007 on a 63 then Bill Stoneberg did it on his 64, take a look.

 

I can send you a bunch of photos of my conversion if it would help, just pm me with your e-mail.

[Seafoam65]

4 hours ago, SwedeDownUnderR63 said:

Have a look at this:

In my experience running an Auto Repair shop for 45 years, the compressor in the above picture

is a pile of crappola........on several occasions I've seen them lock up in less than two weeks after

installation. You can still buy brand new original A6 compressors made by Alma Products that routinely

last for decades with no problem....I have them on all my 60's and 70's cars. I just changed out one of these

locked up compressors like the one in the picture for an A6 this week on a 77 Grand Prix. That compressor lasted a whole 30 minutes before locking up.

 

[BulldogDriver]

Don and Bill’s installation would have been with a Gen 2 evaporator unit. You can now do it with a Gen 4 unit but it is a tight fit, the mounting brackets will need to be modified and the original radio most likely will not fit. You can also fit the control sliders for a Gen 4 to the original controls so it still looks stock. There is no Surefit package for our Rivieras but I was able to get everything from Vintage Air to do the job.

Ray

[my first riv]

Thank you for the responses! Looks like some good info filled with pics and great detailed description of the work ahead. My car was an original AC car but the only stuff left are the controls, whole heater box with blower motor, wiring and one hard line. I'm still busy with my front end rebuild but have the car interior completely gutted and think this is the best time to do the AC install. From the pics and descriptions of the work sounds like now would be a good time to do it.

 

Mark