Vintage Air Climate Control Unit - (No More) Sweatin' To The Oldies - Tech

The bases were then welded to the firewall giving a solid, level foundation for the heater box to attach to.

This mounting setup also enabled the box to be assembled to the cab in sections, making it accessible without having to remove the entire unit from the truck.

With the mounting complete, it's now time to start converting the box to operate as a central outlet unit.

First, a hole is cut to accept the duct hose. This is the inlet for the box.

Since simply dumping the air via the inlet into the box and letting if flow out of the doors would be pretty ineffective, a few modifications need to be made to the internals of the box to ensure it works as expected. The first is a plenum that will direct the majority of the air out the front door. The door will point up toward the center of the cab.

The next step is to make a pair of plenums that will direct air out the side doors as well.

To allow the air to drop down to the side doors, a series of holes was drilled on either side of the plenums. Since the Vintage Air evaporator has a pair of built-in floor outlets, the amount of air we need out the side doors is marginal, hence the rather restricted flow.

This right angle drill attachment kit from Graham Tool worked great to drill the tight holes in the box.

To confine the air to the side plenums and keep it from gathering in the open back half of the box, we filled it with a piece of foam. A simple solution and easier than welding the side plenums shut, it also allows us access to the mounting points of the side doors.