Continued tearing apart the interior to prep for new radio install (double DIN), and re-routing the AC to the knee pads:
Attachment 32760
Attachment 32761
Attachment 32762
Attachment 32763
Printable View
Continued tearing apart the interior to prep for new radio install (double DIN), and re-routing the AC to the knee pads:
Attachment 32760
Attachment 32761
Attachment 32762
Attachment 32763
The new vents look great!Quote:
Originally Posted by Michael Babb
I am thinking about doing this as well and have a couple of questions for you -
Are you going to have 4 like Patricks, or just 2?
What style vent are you using? Make & model.
what sort of vent tubing are you using?
Did you block off the vents behind your stereo, or are you using them? If so, how did you go about adapting the rectangular vents behind the stereo to round vent tubing?
Any information or pics would be great!
I know the question was directed at Mike, but I spoke with him this morning and can chime in on a few things. He is using Mitsubishi Eclipse vents like I did. For these you will need 2.5" flexible air ducting as well as a Y adapter if you want two vents on the passenger knee pad.Quote:
Originally Posted by Trstno1
So if you used y adapters on both sides did you just block off the openings for the rectangular vents behind the middle console? If so what did you use to block them with?Quote:
Originally Posted by Patrick C
I removed the lever for the actuator that opens the center vents (accessible if you remove the glovebox.). I then used aluminum foil tape over the vent openings behind the console just to prevent any air leakage there.Quote:
Originally Posted by Trstno1
Almost shared this link on my original post. Thanks again to Patrick for pointing me in this direction:
http://nostalgicac.com/2-5-inch-duct...y-adapter.html <--the 2.5 inch Y adapter to re-route air to the new vents.
As i mentioned, the vents that I am using are out of an early 2000's Mitsubishi Eclipse (tons of them on eBay at the time of this writing) - kinda ironic to me, as a 2001 Mitsubishi Eclipse was the first car that I ever bought new off of a dealership lot. I actually got a set of 4, that have 2 different setups (2 of each type):
Attachment 32765
Attachment 32766
The vent on the left, will be used on either side of the steering column. these take a 2.5 inch hole and will be fixed (non-rotateable), but you can open and close the vent itself. There is just barely enough room in the knee pads on this side of the car to install the vents.
The vents on the right in the pictures have an outer frame that will require between a 2 3/4 and 3 inch hole to be drilled, but will allow the vents to rotate as well as open and close. I will do two of these on the passenger side of the car. Placement is pretty well dictated by the glove box. I am going to have to figure out the changing from 2.5 inch hose to 2.75 inch vent housing. (I think I have a solution, but will have to see if it actually works once I get parts in the mail).
I just got 1 of the above Y adapters. I plan on using this on the passenger side. the Y will go on the existing hose mounting point and I will use a short section of hose to go to the left vent. The existing hose will to towards the door and will go to the right-most vent. This should be pretty easy to accomplish with minimum modification.
The Drivers side will be more interesting. I am going to leave the tubing in place that goes above the steering column. the short hose that goes to the door will be redirected to the left most vent. the tricky part is that there is no good place to install a y adapter on this side of the car. I plan on drilling a 2.5 inch hole directly in to the existing ducting. . . .somewhere around here:
Attachment 32768
and then either epoxy in a small bit of plastic tube that I can attach the hoses to, or just a hole that the tube can go in to. I was hoping to drill straight in, but will probably have to do that on the bottom, and hopefully at a bit of an angle to keep from having the AC hose go down towards the pedals before looping back up to the vent.
I have looked at the center vents, but have not done anything with them yet. I want to get my new radio in and see what the fit looks like. I like Patrick's idea of disabling the moving mechanism (I was afraid that messing with this would screw up the air going to the new vents as well). I will probably use my dremel to cut down the plastic parts of the center vent and then sealing the ports up to ensure that there is minimal air leakage. I will take pics as I work through all of this, and can make a how-to posting when I am all complete....
More to come!
For this part, I reused one of the original duct hoses that isn't as flexible as the new plastic ones. I drilled the 2.5" hole where Michael has described, then cut the end of the hose into shape so that it "snags" some of the air and forces it down, while allowing some air to pass it as well to get to the far side vent.Quote:
Originally Posted by Michael Babb
Not the best photo, but here you can see what I did in terms of drilling the hole and inserting the hose from there to the kneepad. It works very well in terms of airflow.
Drove the D 100 miles today. No problems at all. I did remove the top door seal on the drivers side because that seal just folds over and pushes up the T panel. Some day I wand to design a new seal.
After shutting off the snowblower and putting it back in its spot behind the D, I peeled the cover back on the car, opened the passenger door and reminded myself how cool the car is. Cold too... it's 34 deg F in my garage at the moment. Brrrrr... back to the couch.
Pretty much same here too, but I didn't need to use snowblower today thank goodness.Quote:
Originally Posted by Jonathan