The Shagpile is on Order Dance Boogie Wondervan!

[8BAK465]

Have you binned all the door panels? Would it have not been better keeping them for templates?

They were like rotten pulp had spores growing on them and stank of rodent piss

There was one on the floor in the rear it fell to bits when i picked it up and the passengers side one had turned to stinky wood porridge at the bottom

Its easy enough to make card templates so they just went out along with some of the smell

[8BAK465]

So I have been waiting for this one! Removing the hideous looking AC Unit from the centre of the dash!



So with the van clear I decided to pull out the aftermarket HVAC system bodged into the dash as not only am I not keen on the look but it’s not connected to anything much under the hood!

There’s two pipes under the hood and there's an accumulator just hanging under the hood but no acc compressor and the condenser has gone too!

So first I removed the front and disconnected all the wiring



So still need to remove the evaporator core from the dash and pull out all the pipes but having disconnected the wiring I snapped what I thought was a hard wired ground

It wasn't a wire though it was a tiny thin pipe going to the evap from the level control Ooops it hissed a bit then I hammered down both ends flat. Don’t think there was much in it?



Got the stereo out looks like it’s been on fire at some point

Can’t get over how crude the fibreglass enclosure for the ac unit is!
Looks like it was knocked together by a five year old!





So brushed and shook it all out wont throw it away as somebody will want it





So now I have this spaghetti rat nest of bodged wiring to figure out



Oh what fun

[8BAK465]

So from there lets get the evaporator free from the dash and sort out the wiring

So pulled out the evaporator as far as I would go from the dash



It was being stopped from going any further by two rubber AC hoses going through the bulkhead into under hood area one already cut the other still holding onto an AC accumulator for dear life





so snipped that and tugged like mad until that came through and I was able to pull the whole unit out
Pulled that out before shaking out all the rodent crap dead spiders and monkey nuts they are everywhere in this Van



Out at last!





I then set about sorting out the rats nest of wiring in the van and wondering what I can do with the large gaping hole in the centre of the dash?



It’s all metal so could have a patch welded into it?

Anyway's back to the wiring as expected most of it was speaker wires there were speaker wires all over the van it looks like it had 4 and the Burnt our stereo was Quadrophonic

So first I got rid of all the speaker wires




Strangely enough three channels of that stereo were all wired into one messy feed going to just one worn out old Kenwood speaker in the dash! Triphonic Mono! Groovy eh




So very soon we were down to just two 12v positives full of dubiously installed fuse holders







One feed for the stereo



Another that fed the AC blower motor



Apart from those lives what looks like a ground wire for the AC blower a mysterious blue wire that disappears towards the passengers side of the dash and the coax cable for the radio antenna

I need to strip the bodged fuse holders once the battery is back in test them to see if they are live on off or accessory and terminate and fuse them safely


But for now I’m happy with the progress

[paulplom]

Great stuff. I'm looking forward to getting my spanners out soon.

[DodgeRover]

Do you have any plans for the AC set up Jo? Have been looking for an after market one for my transit for ages!

[8BAK465]

Do you have any plans for the AC set up Jo? Have been looking for an after market one for my transit for ages!

Its yours if you want it but most of its missing

Id rather somebody take it for free than it go to the tip.

It only has the evap core and dryer (me getting mixed up with names of parts) needs a condenser and AC compressor plus the pipe is now snapped on the core getting it out

But if its for the facia parts to be able to fit your own new cheap Chinese kit you might be on to something?

[DodgeRover]

Sounds like it could be made to work, it's the period bit that goes in the cab that is difficult to source.
Can you hang onto it for a bit until I can collect?

[8BAK465]

Sounds like it could be made to work, it's the period bit that goes in the cab that is difficult to source.
Can you hang onto it for a bit until I can collect?

Yeh no Problem have PMed you

Need to make some sort of plug to fill the hole left by its passing until I work out what i will do with the dash long term,would love another better one but hardly any over here and bringing another whole dash from the states would be astronomical I am guessing so ill get my thinking cap on and make do and mend with what I have

[8BAK465]

Something I forgot from last week
Waited a week to get two new mirrors for the Van from Rock Auto in the states and they turned up smashed to pieces!

Give credit where its due RA seemed to pack them well Around the internal boxes but the internal boxes themselves the company that manufactures them should be ashamed of themselves as the boxes are a fair bit bigger than the mirrors no polystyrene or anything in them to stop them moving around a thin layer of bubble wrap and the fixings were situated above the glass so all the way here they have been happily smashing the glass ! In fact they could of been smashed before they left the packaging is soo poor

On another note I ordered a tune up kit that's been overpacked! Somebody on the line put too many leads in as instead of 9 it has 11

Fast forward and Rock Auto have been absolutely useless

They want me to send them all the way back to them i provided all the pics all the evidence and suggested they just sent me new glass as if they have them back there's shipping and duties they would be libel for both ways but they just argued and argued it seems i have to send back at my expense then claim it back I really couldn't be arsed

I was trying to help them by explaining the manufacturers insufficiently pack them and if they sent replacements they too would be smashed to bits

A guy in a Van group I am in has suggested Acrylic Mirror sheet you can cut yourself and a neighbour told me of a glass place that can cut mirrors to size so will go one of those routes as its really not woth shipping them back to Madison USA where they came from

[paulplom]

That's a bastard. Our old local hardware store used to cut glass and mirrors if you took a carboard template.
Maybe have a look local.