Vintage Air

[Gary Lewis]

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[emunder]

Here is my review of their AC system for the Bullnose...

Just got this system installed so figured I'd post a review in case anyone was interested or have been looking at this kit. I know some folks are gonna scoff at this because of the price but I'm in Texas and I want to daily this truck so I had to have air conditioning. Plus she's a keeper so i have no intention of selling her hence the decision to go with this route. My truck did not come with factory air. The dealer installed the "dealer air" system after the fact. These systems where known to be pretty inefficient from the get-go. Mine just simply would not cool enough or push enough air. When they installed the dealer air package they installed the 4 dash vents so I had them already.

This is the kit I purchased...https://vintageair.com/1980-86-ford-f-series-bronco-i6-cylinder-without-factory-air-gen-5-surefit-complete-kit/. Price was $2,175 which included everything, even a new control panel so none of my existing system was used except for the dash vents. The system itself is fully contained and mounted behind the dash. Blower and hose mounts on the engine side of the firewall were completely removed and replaced with a flat metal plate. I did not want to tackle this job myself so I found a local and reputable shop to install it. They did a great job and charged me $1,500 for the install. This was cheap compared to some of the other shops I contacted that did restoration work. Some where as high as $3,000 so I was lucky I found the shop I did. So after the smoke cleared this system was close to 4 grand installed.

The good: System works great! I normally leave the blower control slider about half-way up. Anything more and it starts to freeze you out of the cab. Defroster works fine as well, had to use that a few times. I'll test the heat once it gets colder. No complaints with the system whatsoever. It does drop the RPM's just slightly once the compressor kicks on but no big deal, just adjusted my idle speed on the carb.

The bad: Vintage Air as a company was frustrating to deal with in my personal experience. The first thing that happened was my shop realized we were missing a high pressure line when they were trying to get everything wrapped up and charge the system. They contacted Vintage Air and they sent us the missing hose. No big deal right, stuff happens. Takes several additional days by the time they receive and install the hose. So I get a call that they were done with the install and were charging and testing out the system. The AC gods rejoiced and I was excited...only to get another call saying everything was working correctly but they were not getting any cold air. They needed to diagnose the issue and they would call me back. Got a call a couple of days later and they pinpointed the issue to a faulty control panel. They called Vintage Air's tech line and the tech kept saying no...it is most likely a faulty wiring harness, we'll ship you a new one out. So several more days go by and they receive and install the new harness. Same issue...no cold air. Now I'm starting to get aggravated...

The ugly: So finally my shop was able to convince the tech guy that they just simply needed a new control panel. They are told that they custom make them one at a time so go ahead and pull the bad unit out, ship it to them, they will rebuild it, and then send it back out. Between shipping, rebuild and reinstall time this is literally going to take a couple more weeks. So now were are going on about a month before this whole project gets wrapped up, assuming the new control panel works. I also feel sorry for the shop because they need to get my vehicle done and out of there so they can get other projects in. I ended up calling Vintage Air and reading them the riot act. Asking why they can't just ship us a new unit instead of pulling the old one out and for this kind of money they ought to be trying to accommodate us. Their solution was for us to pay another $275 and they would ship another unit out. Once we send the old unit back they would refund it to us. I tried to speak to their sales manager but he was unavailable due to being out of pocket at a big car show so we were forced to deal with the tech guy. At this point I'm like fine...I'll pay it, just send out a new unit. They had another one shipped out in a few days and my shop ended up covering the upfront cost. So they get the new control panel installed and what do ya know...we get cold air and everything works as it should.

I know this was long but again, just wanted to throw this information out there in case someone is interested. Besides the cost it is a great option. And the issues I had doesn't mean that it will happen again for someone else. Few pics...