Engine bay aesthetics

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John Collins

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I’m at the point with my car now that I’d like to start cleaning up the look of the engine bay. Tidying up wiring, rerouting spark plug wires and the A/C mess. Can anyone post a picture of your SB engine bay with A/C? The wiring and plugs will be fairly easy to sort out, but before I mess with the A/C, is there any advice on how to address/dress it would be appreciated. Thank you in advance.
 
Here’s a photo

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Cars with factory A/C always look cluttered no matter what you do. I think they do look better when the car isn't black because you'll at least see some body color peek through in places. That A/C compressor looks like a Briggs and Stratton roto-tiller engine sitting up top there, no way around that if you're staying stock.
 
Thank you Kern and Toolman!

I seem to have quite a few more extra parts than Toolman... The upper left section of my engine bay looks like a rats nest. Lol. Is there anything I can delete?
 
As the years went on, they added more wires and pollution controls. Vacuum delays, hoses, cannisters, etc.
Your right fender apron has a ground cable that could be relocated to attach to the back of the head near the firewall. That vacuum bubble thing can be tossed too. The coil wiring will be tucked in better if the coil were mounted on the block like it did originally.
Not being critical of your car, just offering ideas.
 
Thank you! Please, all suggestions are welcome. I bought it this way(mostly) and now I’m trying to clean up the mess. Lol. I actually added the gaudy 1/0 ground because I was having electrical issues. The ground to the front of the engine from the battery was installed over thick paint(which I removed) and I couldn’t access the back of the block easily when installing another ground to the firewall and couldn’t see how well of a job I did removing paint from the back of the engine, so I went overkill. I’ll take credit for that one. Lol. Can I move it to the drivers side fender and utilize the same bolt as the battery ground? It’ll disappear a little like on that side.

I don’t even see your coil! Thank you!
 
Get rid of the AC and actually be able to work under there. AC is for sissies!! Its why they have windows that roll down and vent windows (unless you are a modern guy with '70 up Mopar)! ha
 
AC’s staying... I’m a modern guy, I leave the tough guy stuff to tough guys. I appreciate the input though.
 
John Collins said:
AC’s staying... I’m a modern guy, I leave the tough guy stuff to tough guys. I appreciate the input though.
Click to expand...
You know I was just being a smart ***! But i admit I hate AC stuff in my way and it does get pretty hot here in SE Tx. I just fire up the old AC less cars early and late when it is not 105!!! The old 260 AC unit, 2 windows down at 60 MPH! ha
 
Lol! I had no clue either way... I just thought it sounded funny in my head. I’m in SoCal(don’t hate. Lol) and it gets hot more often than I’d like, so I don’t mind the xtra 75 pounds and eye sore. Lol.
 
I still have a few things to add, like a washer bottle and over flow tank, oh and a mopar sticker kit on the battery.

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Holy smokes Dodge71Demon... Where’d all the wires go! I can’t believe you improved on this. Lol
 
I'd use TMM's engine bay as a great example to follow.
Biggest difference I see in 'stuff' is the coil location.

Use the factory spark plug wire routing or something close. They routed it and used seperators to minimize one effecting another. Long distances of parallel and close can contribute to misfires.
If you don't want to modify the cast valve covers, at least a couple companies sell wire holders held by the valve cover screws.

Ground strap. The 2nd gen 60s cars had the engine to body ground in the back of the engine. Later cars have battery to body ground wire as part of the battery negative cable. Generally having both does not hurt. Anyway my point was you could move to the rear to clean things up. Flat braided grounding cable looks nice, or a black insulated 10 or 12 ga wire would blend in the shadows.

Engine bay harness can be wrapped in non-sticky electrical tape (or convolute if you like). Its taken me a long ime to come around to this but the factory route is actually pretty good. It keeps the wires away from heat and supports it to minimize stresses on the connectors. Again without drilling the cast valve covers you'll just have to be creative in ways to support wires up off the intake.
 
Where are you getting your washer bottle and overflow tank from Dart freak 75? Mine are functional, but look like they’re 48 years old and I’m either going to paint them or replace. Lol.
 
Mattax said:
Biggest difference I see in 'stuff' is the coil location
Click to expand...
And the vacuum resevoir on the vender. Oops - Somehow overlooked that.
What's that used for? Is it a part of cruise control? A/C ?
 
Mattax said:
And the vacuum resevoir on the vender. Oops - Somehow overlooked that.
What's that used for? Is it a part of cruise control? A/C ?
Click to expand...

It’s for the Carburetor. Which is the
9635... 625 CFM Carter AFB competition series 4 barrel.
 
John Collins said:
It’s for the Carburetor. Which is the
9635... 625 CFM Carter AFB competition series 4 barrel.
Click to expand...
Ok.
I do see its connected to a manifold vacuum source.
The carburetor doesn't need a vacuum resevoir. It just supplies the resevoir which in turn provides a more constant level of vacuum for devices.
 
Ahhhhhh. Thank you! There’s a vacuum line that comes from the firewall that was unplugged that looks like it was plugged into it at some point.

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Vacuum actuated A/C and heater controls.
Yup. I'm not sure of the routing but at least one of those goes to the canister on the fender.
The feed to the canister comes from the carb's lower manifold vacuum port. So that connection is correct.

The slightly higher port is vacuum for the distributor (and EGR for cars that came with that).
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Some pictures here of similar on a 71 with slant 6 and A/C. But unfortunately not hooked up.
71 Valiant, Heater Vacuum Lines/Controls
 
Don't quote me on this but I think the vacuum reservoir was because of the vacuum controls on the AC box inside. My '71 GT has one. The AC/heat controller is all worked off of vacuum not cables, and the blend doors and factory water bypass and all of that work off of vacuum pots. So the reservoir was to run all of that stuff. My '71 is also a smog car, the California '71's were different than the others.

Here's a few shots of the engine compartment as it was when I first got it. The first two were the seller's pictures so don't yell at me about the corrugated radiator hose or goofy water shut off valve and bypassed heater core, that wasn't me! The last picture is mine but the intake was off.

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