Beelzeburb, The Story More Than a Decade in the Making

[Beelzeburb]

Gee, now that I've gathered most everything for my GenIV install, VintageAir comes out with a bolt on kit. Oh well, I've got the stuff so yesterday I decided to start on the install.

I'm doing this now because I've got my 240Z almost completely reassembled after I painted it:


Plus, my 510 is now a running and drivable vehicle but I'm waiting on a sheetmetal shrinker/stretcher so I can keep making my own patch panels for it. By default that left the Suburban to play with.

Yesterday afternoon I unpacked the GenIV evaporator unit and started reading over the instructions. The front and rear mounting brackets were the first to go on. Well, I soon learned that the heater fittings needed to be fitted before that, so off came the rear bracket, and then back on again.



I gathered up some spare 2x4s from last summer's kitchen remodel, stacked them up and wedged the unit roughly into place. Now I could get an idea of where everything fit in relation to the unit, and it made it much easier to visualize where my mounting brackets would sit.



I had been concerned that the upper mount might interfere with the power distribution block and the fuel pump relay that I'd already mounted behind the dash, but they cleared just fine. It was also pretty tricky taking a decent picture with the extreme contrast of deep black POR-15 and the bright white dash. My DSLR would have done better, but my little point & shoot Kodak is more 'expendable'.

I took some measurements and re-read the CustomClassicTrucks article for some guidance. Late last night I bent up this bracket:



My brother in law had come across a hood from a Dodge D100 sitting abandoned in a field one day while out jogging and it has been donating sheetmetal to my projects, including this bracket. It's 6.5" wide where it mounts to the VA evaporator unit, it sits off the firewall 2.25" and the legs are 1" wide each for a total of 13" wide x 10.5" tall. I welded four pieces of threaded rod, one on each corner so that the GenIV unit's rear bracket slips right over them.

This morning I trial fit the new bracket in place, but saw that one corner would have to be trimmed.



The unit had to be that close to the center of the vehicle. Otherwise there would be absolutely no space to route the hoses to the firewall bulkhead.



That last picture helps show the space constraints. I was holding the bulkhead as close to the outside edge as I reasonable could. I'd only tacked my bracket in place and hung the GenIV unit on it to make sure things were lining up properly. Everything looked okay, so off came the evaporator unit and the bracket was welded on for good. Then the evaporator went back on again so that I could take final measurements for the upper mounting bracket. Unfortunately I didn't take any pictures of the fab process for the upper mount. It was just a simple "S" shaped piece with four angle braces. The top of the GenIV unit sat 4.5" from the firewall, so I made it 6.5" long and bent the last 1" of each side for the mounting part then welded it to the firewall.

The last big step for the day was to cut a hole i the firewall for the vertical billet bulkhead. VintageAir supply good instructions and a handy template for this job. I tried center punching and drilling 1-1/4" holes in the ends like the instructions call for, but my 1.25" hole saw was hopelessly dull.



Instead I cut the long straight sections with my angle grinder and traced around the corners by hand with the Dremel. Not the cleanest solution, but it worked well enough.



Now the portion inside the cabin is ready to be recoated with POR-15 and then the GenIV evaporator unit can be bolted down for good. After that I will make the engine bay side of the firewall completely smooth with no traces of the old system.