Right, as the title says, i have an idea but have zero experience with aircon so figured there'd be someone in pf land that could offer some advice. I've finally bought the nissan CA18DET engine for the escort and it has aircon, i was going to pull it off but the more i think about it the more i like the thought of having aircon for those long road trips i plan on doing, south of france, spain, the ring etc. But is it possible to plumb it in without the nissan heater box etc? Anyone work with aircon got any ideas how best to do it?? Cheers.

 

Have you asked on Turbosoprt they into theri old skool fords and if any site they might they might,or any of the old skool ford sites

 

Guy on here foreign rs has alot of experience with automotive a/c might be worth a pm to him

 

Nice one, cheers gents.

 

Well, power steering is possible, so no reason why aircon can't be done too, Martin Hadland has fitted it to his RS500, can't see how it will be much different, maybe drop him a pm?

 

planty of companys sell retro a/c kits

for an idea:
http://www.classicautoair.com/

 

You could actually get aircon from the factory in Australia in the mk2 escort ( poss other countries too) so you might be able to track down some OE stuff and mate the two together or at least acquire some diagrams and work out how it could work.

 

Dont be a girl,the heater,aircon and power steering is all shit you dont need

 

ive thought about doing this on mine, my plan was to use mk5 or 6 escort heater box. would have to lose the heater bubble but moving bulkhead back on mine anyway, then just looking into what size aircon rad i could fit of another car that wont impede my intercooler too much, its definatley do able like mentioned martin hadland fit it too his rs500 using a mix of ford and rover bits

 

Some good ideas there, thing is i don't want to hack the original car to peices, so if i can i want to maybe run it seperate to the normal heater system?? Just stick it on.permanently cold then have a swith to turn it on, but i dont know if i can simply block pipes off or whether it "needs" the nissan heater box, and Retro Al, i do agree, power steering is for girls, haha, but i dont like being cooked in my car on a drive, so pants to it, im having aircon, hahaha.

 

i put a/c in my mk1 escort years ago.

your best bet would be to keep the whole nissan a/c system components as they kind of need to be matched otherwise you might get evaporator freezing, too frequent compressor clutch cycling, pressure problems etc.

that's not to say that you have to have the whole hvac 'box' in your car, you could make a custom one containing just the evaporator from the nissan one combined with the mk2 blower and heater etc, but the escort one works by controlling air flow through the heater matrix, not water flow so could be tricky.

you'd want the wiring loom and controls from the datsun as well ideally.

 

Just wind the windows down matey.