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Cheap 105 Air Conditioning

4K views 12 replies 8 participants last post by  Rosey105 
#1 ·
Like many 105 owners who live in a warm climates (and West Australia does get hot), driving a 105 becomes less inviting when the temp exceeds 33-34 Deg C.

Not having the cash for a full refrigerant A/C like the Alfaholics kit I decided to look for ways to cool the car, even something that could take the sting out of a hot day without needing to be a full A/C system.

Apart from the cost, a full A/C system has the disadvantages of consuming HP, cluttering up the engine bay, sticking the battery in the boot and the hassles of erratic idle speeds. Also the evaporator units on the original A/C fitted cars and some aftermarket systems spoils the look of a GTV2000 dash.

So I decided to experiment and make up an evaporative a/c system, or as some of you in the US would say, a swampy a/c. For less than $100 I can modify my glove box to fit a fan that will blow air over common type ice brickettes and direct the air to two vents in a new center console.

First step is to make up the fan. As I will be placing the fan at the rear of the glove box (because that is the only place where there is spare room for one) it needs to be small, efficient and not to noisy. I purchased a 120mm Maglev 12V fan from my local electronics store, commonly used to cool computers. I purchased a test plastic box (about the volume of my glove box) fitted the fan to it to test it was going to give reasonable air flow. It seem to do the job, powerful little suckers these fans.

As this fan is bigger than the rear part of the glove box I mounted the fan in a small plastic box with fan guard that was also available from an electronics store. This is it.......next will be the glovebox.
 

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#5 ·
I am hoping that any water that comes from the melting ice blocks will collect on the bottom of the glove box and will be soaked up a little by the velvet type material that lines the gloves box.

This will hopefully evaporate away as the fan air draws past it to also aid with the evaporative cooling effect. I was going to use a bigger glove box to put a bigger ice block load to get a better cooling effect, however the lack of space under the dash made it hard. Also by using the original glove box will keep the dash looking from looking garish with some big black box hanging under the dash.

If I end up with more water than expected, I will attach a small drain tube at the bottom. Using common type ice packs makes it easy to take from the fridge when ever I need to travel on a hot day and then easy to refreeze.
 
#7 ·
Now to modifying the glovebox. I cut a rectangular section out of the rear of the box the same size as that on the fan box. The fan box will be mounted to the rear of the glove box with two self taping screws. This will enable the fan to be removed with little fuss if it needs to be replaced etc without having to remove the glove box.

The top open section of the glove box needed to be filled in so that a reasonably air tight box is created. I found some zinc sheet parts at my local hardware store which I cut up and bent to shape, pop riveted it with sealant to the box. Before fitting the glove box, I put some one sided tape inside dash to provide an air seal with the zinc sheet (The picture shows it now creates a fully sealed box)

I also found a couple of common type plastic plumbing fittings at the hardware store which were a perfect fit for the 63mm flexible hose that will connect the glove box to the air vents. These fittings are attached to the right side of the glove box using self taping screws from inside the box. This will enable me to attach these fittings to the flex hose before fitting the vents and hose as one unit ( there is not much room under the dash let alone adding two 63mm flex hoses and trying to fit these fittings)
 

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#8 ·
Next part completed is the new center console section that has two eye ball air vents.

I made up a cardboard template then cut out the profile using some mild steel sheet metal. I had some scrap 10mm plywood which I then glued to the back section of the console using contact adhesive. I managed to buy a couple of eye ball vents from a chap who was wrecking a 116. These eye ball vents are basically the same as the 105 air vents except the silver colour knob and it does not have the extra tabs on the rear end for fitting. These vents were much cheaper and more readily available than the 105 ones and by having the plywood on the console enabled the vents to be fitted to the console with a nice snug fit.

I covered the console with some black vinyl using contact adhesive and attached the two 63mm air hoses to the eye ball vents and the other end the two white adapters which will be attached to the side of the glove box using self taping screws from inside the glove box.

The fan and its plastic box housing was fitted to rear end of the glove box using self taping screws again, the picture shows the fan when looking from the glove box opened door. I will eventually find some suitable wire racks that will hold the plastic ice blocks in the glove box just off the bottom to allow max surface area and therefore cooling surface to cool the air drawn in by the fan. The wire rack will also provide some physical protection of the fan blades from objects placed in the glove box.

Because of the lack of space between the center console and the side of the glove box for the 63mm air hoses, I removed the left side air vent duct that go from the side of the heater box up to the left center dash board air vent. The opening on the heater where the plastic was attached too was blanked off using the rectangular piece of plastic that was cut from the rear of the glove box as shown.....nice not to waste anything. This was a small price to pay as I have still have the right side screen dash vent to be used for the very rare need to defrost the wind screen.

Getting close now!!
 

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#11 ·
Yes I did make up a test type box, see post #1. This proved the fan capacity was about right and it would support two 63mm outlet hoses.

By using the original glove box, the worse case senario would be that I just use the new fan to blow air which would be better than nothing especially when in slow moving traffic when the side air vents do not get enough air.

The glove box can still be used as a glove box if necessary and it looks no different from the front view.
 
#13 ·
That is true nealric, it will not be that effective in humid climates, Perth is very dry and hot. Even if it does get a little humid, at least I have better ventilation with air blowing from the new center console vents to provide more comfort.

The new center console sits nicely on top of the original console so it remains intact. The air vents are able to blow air to the driver and passenger without the gear shift lever obstructing the air flow in any gear.

You will notice that I have also modified my console by making up a new plate to hold the original wiper and fan switches and also two new switches. One new switch was for my electric aerial as previously posted and the other to turn on the small fan at the rear of the glove box as the A/C fan......looks better in the flesh.

I am waiting for a council road collection day to pick up a free wire rack used in ovens or a refrigerator. I will bend it to shape to make a tray to hold the plastic ice brickettes in the glove box and will wait for our summer for its acid test.......will advise how it goes!
 

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