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We’ve all heard that old saying “Never buy a car
made on a Monday or a Friday”. Well, I’ve come to believe
there just may be some truth to that. The fender tag on my ’73 Lebaron
indicates it was built on Sept 18 1972 – a Monday. I just
discovered that one of the parts installed at the factory for the AutoTemp II
system is not the correct part at all, but rather belongs to the non-AutoTemp
version of the heating/air conditioning system. My car is totally dismantled at the moment for a very slow
do-it-yourself ground up restoration, and it has been over 20 years since I
drove it, but I remember that when I was driving the car many years ago, the
air conditioning was never as cold as it should have been and I think I now know
why. I also remember that when I took the dash apart and stored all the
bits and pieces in boxes that there was a bundle of vacuum hoses that just went
“nowhere”. I thought that was strange at the time. I
since determined from the parts book, FSM and ’71 Master
Technician’s Service Conference on A/T II that this bundle of hoses was
supposed to go to a “vacuum transfer switch” that controls the
fresh air/recirculation door. I figured maybe somehow that little switch
got missed as my car made its way down the assembly line. After all, it
was a Monday! To my delight, I was able to order an NOS transfer switch
and thought my troubles were over. However, now that I have the vacuum switch, I have
determined that I also have the wrong fresh air/recirculating door assembly. It
looks like I have the air door for standard A/C and not AutoTemp II.
(Actually there seem to be a few different names for this part. The parts
book calls it the “Air recirculating housing” PN 3620732. The
FSM “air door housing” and the MTSC calls it the “air inlet
door”. I’ll just call it the “air door” for
simplicity.) Anyway, the air door for AutoTemp II should have a cam
attached to it to move the spool valve of the transfer switch through its
travel as the door moves from zero to 100% outside air. And the bracket
that holds the vacuum pot (actuator) that moves the door should have a place to
mount the transfer switch. Mine has neither! A bad day at the factory
indeed! So now I am looking for a ‘71 thro’ 73 air door
housing for AutoTemp II (with cam and bracket for the transfer switch).
There is good news and bad news regarding this air door housing assembly.
The good news is that this part is easily removed “once you get to
it”. The bad news is that there is quite a bit involved in
“getting to it”. It is located directly behind the
heater blower motor and is accessed from the engine compartment side of the
firewall. There are just four screws holding it in the firewall, but you
have to remove the blower motor and the large plastic air plenum/housing
on the firewall first. Just removing the blower motor is a challenge
because it is pretty much buried in behind the right front fender. The
FSM says you can remove the blower motor by removing the plastic wheelhouse
inner fender shields and going at it from “underneath”, but I have
a feeling it would be a lot easier with the fender completely off! If anyone out there on the List has a ’71 –
’73 parts car with AutoTemp II in such a state of “tear-down”
that they could get at the air door housing rather easily, and would like to
sell it, I would be very interested in hearing from you off list. |
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