Classic Auto Air Install Experience

ESP47 said
If you change your mind and wind up modifying the stock heater controls, do a search on that because I believe the wire on one of the pots is too long and doesn't allow the correct amount of travel. There's definitely a lot wrong with this kit but it's not like we have many options. The tubes sitting too low in the firewall hole is probably the most annoying aspect of it, considering how testing the product on a few cars and making some measurements could have prevented that easily.

The driver side vent tube gave me the most hassle now that I think of it. There is no where for the vent tube to travel cleanly through the steering column area and back to the AC box. I had to take a length of PVC tube and strap it to the back side of the steering column bracket up in the dash and then connect the hoses on each side of it. If you try running the flexible tube back there I'm pretty sure the wiper linkage will eventually tear it up.

I haven't gotten to the tubing yet, but I had seen that brought up several times. I have a 3D printer and have seen some people that have tried to print some ducting to do more or less what you did with the PVC setup. I'm also not running a speedometer cable anymore and might even convert more of my dash to displays at some point, so that might save me some more room to route stuff, but I'll have to come up with something in the meantime. I'm debating if I even want to put the one vent all the way on the left side or not. I like my fresh air door and plan to keep it. I've read where one guy just used velcro to attach the vent to the bottom of the dash so he could move it out of the way to open the fresh air door. I like that idea but way thinking I may use magnets instead. Since I'm planning to put some vents where the radio goes I might just put the left driver vent as far left as I can get it while still being on the right side of the steering column, but I'd have to see where that ends up and if it makes any sense. I have also seen the comments about limited travel on the controls, which was another reason I was debating just mounting the pot directly to the dash instead. I modeled up a mounting plate last night, but need to do some more measurements as I think I need to move the pots closer since they have such short tabs on them.

TrailBeast said
I had some of the same issues with the left end bracket, as it lacked about an inch to contact the cowel.
I ended up flipping the bracket upside down and re bending it to mount to the bottom of the dash.

Mine is all electronic with no cables (servo motors)
They didn’t have a control panel I was happy with, so I had them just send the knobs and I made a new panel to mount them in.
Worked out pretty good.

View attachment 1716398636

Never thought about attaching to the bottom of the dash. I like that idea a lot more, but I guess too late now. I wasn't thrilled with all the random new self tapped holes I'm putting in my car, let alone ones in the cowl, but it's not like my car is anywhere close to stock anymore. I'm more or less looking to do something similar to what you have with your knobs, just with the slider pots they include in the kit. I think I can get them mounted behind the factory faceplate, though they have about half the travel of the stock controls, so that will be a little funny looking. Seems like it would be way easier to design a panel to direct mount the controls like that over figuring out how to attach them to the stock mechanicals, but I'm guessing the limited travel probably had something to do with that. I have thought about measuring the resistance to see what range they have and looking to see if I can find different ones, but not sure how deep down the rabbit hole I want to go on modification.

My second idea was to actually make it an auto climate control system and have a microcontroller operating the controls. I have a "programmable resistor" IC from an old college class that has something like 1024 steps, so I could just add a temperature sensor and have the microcontroller auto adjust the temp and fan based on what it's reading, but that might be hard on the servos depending on how often I update them. More just a novel idea to keep in the back of my mind for fun.