I am looking at the smallest Vintage Air unit to install behind the dash of my 36 Ford truck. There's not much room behind there. They have it available with and without the defrost option. Was wondering of the people that have a/c-heat in there vehicles do you have defrost and do you use it often? The 36 is a small cab area, with a short dash and flat glass. I'm in Florida so defrosting is less of a concern but maybe defogging may be more applicable. Thoughts?
I installed the AC/heat/defrost mini unit from Vintage Air in my 41 Ford PU. I built the truck for my wife so defrost was not an option in the pacific northwest.
Just polish the inside of your windows with 2'in'1 shampoo [that's what we do on race cars when racing in the rain] It is so effective you can see the fogged windows in areas behind mirrors that we couldn't reach. Now the best compact defroster I've ever seen [also on a race-car] was made from a head unit of a 12v camping hair dryer It still required some ducting and a bit of hard wiring but was a clever idea. About $19 from wally world
The shampoo or the hair dryer??? Most cheap 12v Hair dryers are about 10 amps. [better ones are 18 amps] In NZ cars after a certain year must have a defroster for a roadworthy. This is a good solution for a gutted out race car that race in "street classes"
I also used a Vintage Air unit with defrost in my car. From looking at their pics, the case is the same with or without defrost, only the holes are closed on the non defrost unit. It works great to clear a fog off the glass on humid days. Much better than constant wiping with a rag…
I did this back in the late 80's. Had a 68 400 firebird with a/c. Heater core leaked & replaced it, less than a yr later that one started leaking so I bypassed it and used the plug in hair dryer. If you ever had to replace a heater core in a 67-69 firebird you'd understand why, complete removal of bumper, hood, right fender and fender well, then you can remove the A/C box on the firewall.... ...
Yes the only difference is the missing ducts and I guess a blend door inside, and its only about $50 less. I have a few thoughts / ideas about it. One is I dont have a lot of room under the dash, and the top of the cowl slopes down towards the firewall a bit. I would want to mount it as far up as I could get it and still have room to get the hoses on. It looks like the defrost ones are towards the front, which would be the shorter area as the cowl slopes. So that would force it to be mounted lower. Trying to hide it as much as possible without adding some kind of panel below the dash. My other thought was since its such a small cab and sorta limited areas to mount vents, what if I just plumbed the defrost ducts with the others and just let it blow out of them all the time?
I hid the little vintage air unit in a restored old heater in my 32 roadster. With the defrosters or,clear fogging. Like Billy said, not optional in the PNW. I don’t have a picture, but along these lines. Tucked the top up under the dash, only the lower half is visible.
One of the big advantages of the "defrost" option (since you plan to have A/C anyway) is that it blows dehumidified air that has passed through a functioning condenser to quickly de-fog the interior of the glass. In cold weather conditions, simply warming the air output but not dehumidifying the air charge will result in additional fogging until the cold glass eventually warms up enough. This can also happen in the middle of a road trip when suddenly driving into changing humidity conditions. My point is even in the middle of winter, your windshield clears faster and safer with warmed, dry air than it does with warmed "wet" air that wants to condense on the cold glass. It's a safety issue. Use it if you've got it. Of course, a car with no A/C at all is more basic and so you drive with a different mindset about its limitations. Adapting to the limitations of the equipment is part of the hot rod lifestyle. I once got into a debate with a knucklehead who wanted to defeat the A/C factor of the "defrost" mode in his daughter's modern vehicle so she could save a few pennies of fuel usage.
Your a 100% correct about the warm dry air and changing humidity conditions. The wife likes to drive with the ac off and the blower operating. Several times, usually later at night the windshield has fogged and I have to scramble to get the ac on to clear it it which sucks on the interstate doing 80+. What about the option to just let the defogger ducts blow all the time?
Buy the AC unit with the defroster. The dry air running through the AC unit hitting the glass will clear the glass faster then just heated air will. I don't have the AC connected on my 49 yet (needs a remote condenser $$$). The air blowing through the defroster ducts does a pretty good job, once it gets warmed up. I have a little squeegee from the Dollar Store to clear the glass on the inside until the defroster air gets warm (about the first 5 minutes driving time in the winter), but we have real winter up here and the truck gets driven year around. I suspect the AC's dry air would clear the glass faster.
The Jalopy Journal
