James bond 007
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Hi virgin member here I have a 1.1 2010 panda looking to do I DIY A/C install is this the correct place to post this ? first post and first ever forum I have joined
Technical DIY A/C
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Technical DIY A/C
If you are looking to make a non air con car have air con, in my opinion it would be cheaper to buy an air con version of that vehicle.
Even if you had a scrap car with air con to swap over you would be looking at possibly 100s of hours of work.
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The heater box is first item fitted inside the bare shell at the factory it’s followed by the huge tubular steel frame that’s eventually hidden by the dashboard.
James bond 007
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its just the car is very low mileage awsome condition its a project I can just buy a few bits here and there maybe 1 year to get it all done the parts will be from a 1.2 same mark so it will all be original fit parts just wondered if anyone tried it before ? I'm a aircraft technician so skill and tools are not a problem and a 1 year time frame times not a problem and I plan to keep the car till its dead
I have actually done this on a car. 100 hours is probably a bit high in time taken but you can't under-estimate how huge this job is to so on a car that does not have air con. I have done it on an early Mk1 Mondeo (which I also upgraded to the Mk2 mondeo climate control system later on) this was in a time before Canbus and the mondeo did not have any "modules or computers" connecting anything together. There was a simple wire to the engine ECU to tell the engine the aircon was on so to up the idle a bit. (I will explain this more in a bit)
You will need
1. A condenser, which is a radiator that site in front of the normal radiator and cools the refrigerant gas.
These usually get damage in any accident and are difficult to find in usable condition second hand, new they are over £100-150 on a panda.
2 Receiver/dryer, basically a filter to remove moisture from the refrigerant.
Sometimes part of the condenser now but separately still expensive. You CANNOT reuse them technically speaking even on a healthy aircon system they should be replaced every so often as they stop working once saturated with moisture.
3. All the pipes from the engine bay- self explanatory.
They can cost £20 - 30 per pipe, have a look round on ebay, there are usually several joining all the parts of the system together.
4. wiring loom from a car with aircon.
Sometimes with fiat you get lucky and the wiring is already in place but doubtful on a panda as the default was no aircon.
5. Inside the car you will need the heater box the whole thing.
as explained above this goes in the car pretty early in the build process so the whole dash needs to come out to get it out.
6 While you're at it take all the dash wiring loom and the heater controls
The dash loom is usually attached to the dash before the whole piece is installed so easier to just take the lot. DO NOT REMOVE THE LOOM FROM THE DASH you will regret it, when the loom no longer makes sense and you have no idea where the wiring plugs are meant to go or why they no longer reach where they should go.
7 a few liters of new coolant, you will need to disconnect the engine coolant lines to change the heater box so you will need to replace the lost coolant.
8. a pollen filter, your car will not have one but air con cars do.
9 oh and you'll need the compressor. that can be second hand just make sure the clutch works and the bearings are good, pulley spins freely and get an AUX belt for an aircon car (buy this new)
Start with the interior parts first. you'll strip out the entire dash and wiring loom. drain the coolant remove the heater box basically the only thing in front of the front seats will be the bulkhead and the steering column, and about a million lost pay and display tickets.
you put in the heater box dash wiring loom and pipework from the donor car. you'll have to reconnect the coolant pipes to the heater box, flush and refil the system and bleed any air out.
leave the air con pipes open. put the pollen filter in and hope once everything is connected up your car still works as with the difference in the looms the new wiring loom might confuse the more basic system. you may find everything works fine in which case win but you're not home free.
This alone will take 2 - 3 days of work if doing it on your own.
Then tackle the engine bay. Radiator out, condensor attatched and put the lot back in. Compressor needs bolting to the engine, put the new belt on and change the O-rings, make sure they are aircon compatible o-rings, basically every O-ring and seal in the system will need to be new no reusing old seals or you will get leaks and lose all your gas.
You'll need to wire the engine bay with a new engine loom if you have had to change this.
you may then be able to use something like Multi-ECU scan to see if you can electronically toggle the aircon on and off via the software. If you cannot your car's ecu's may not support aircon and the engine and body computer might need to be replaced.
See if you can toggle the engine cooling fan into 1 or two speeds usually aircon cars have a two speed fan with additional wiring and relays. you may need to take the engine fuse box out and rewire these things in from the back or change the fuse box completely with the wiring loom.
Then you will need to get the system professionally gassed up. Take it to a specialist someone who knows how these things work. I wouldn't even recommend taking it to a good garage, only take it to an aircon specialist tell them you have installed the system and tell them you need it fully testing. They will then know to put an appropriate amount of oil in for a new install, I would have dye put in to help identify leaks then it will need gassing up and pressure testing. You can not gas this up with cans from Halfords at it will need to have a vacuum put on the system and held for an hour or so, to make sure there are no obvious or big leaks but also to boil off any moisture in the system. (low pressure causes water to boil at low temperature, it turns to steam and leaves the system via the vacuum if the system has been left open them cold alloy pipes can store a fair amount of water and condensation.
At this point if everything has gone according to plan press the button on the dash and you might have working aircon, again assuming the electronics is talking to each other ok. you may need to code in that the car has aircon now so the car knows to idle up the engine when the aircon is on. there are basic functions built into aircon such as cutting the compressor at wide open throttle, and increasing the idle slightly to prevent stalling when the system is running so the car needs to know to do this in these situations.
Congratulations you have aircon. Its a massive achievement that few people have done, you will have no skin on your knuckles your family will have disowned you for being bloody stupid. You will have given up about a month or two of weekends to get it all done and get it all working. You will be maybe £1000 out of pocket, and you will curse the day you ever had the idea to do this work...
However you will be more comfortable in the summer, just note the insulation on a panda (most small fiats) and so they do not keep cold very well even with aircon. Bigger better insulated cars stay much cooler in the summer compared to little cars.
Thinks you will also need to make sure are in place is a drain from the evaporator which is within the heater box to the engine bay, without this your car will quickly fill up with water and turn moldy.
Honestly from someone who has done this, don't. Just buy a different panda with aircon, you'll at least then keep your sanity.
You will need
1. A condenser, which is a radiator that site in front of the normal radiator and cools the refrigerant gas.
These usually get damage in any accident and are difficult to find in usable condition second hand, new they are over £100-150 on a panda.
2 Receiver/dryer, basically a filter to remove moisture from the refrigerant.
Sometimes part of the condenser now but separately still expensive. You CANNOT reuse them technically speaking even on a healthy aircon system they should be replaced every so often as they stop working once saturated with moisture.
3. All the pipes from the engine bay- self explanatory.
They can cost £20 - 30 per pipe, have a look round on ebay, there are usually several joining all the parts of the system together.
4. wiring loom from a car with aircon.
Sometimes with fiat you get lucky and the wiring is already in place but doubtful on a panda as the default was no aircon.
5. Inside the car you will need the heater box the whole thing.
as explained above this goes in the car pretty early in the build process so the whole dash needs to come out to get it out.
6 While you're at it take all the dash wiring loom and the heater controls
The dash loom is usually attached to the dash before the whole piece is installed so easier to just take the lot. DO NOT REMOVE THE LOOM FROM THE DASH you will regret it, when the loom no longer makes sense and you have no idea where the wiring plugs are meant to go or why they no longer reach where they should go.
7 a few liters of new coolant, you will need to disconnect the engine coolant lines to change the heater box so you will need to replace the lost coolant.
8. a pollen filter, your car will not have one but air con cars do.
9 oh and you'll need the compressor. that can be second hand just make sure the clutch works and the bearings are good, pulley spins freely and get an AUX belt for an aircon car (buy this new)
Start with the interior parts first. you'll strip out the entire dash and wiring loom. drain the coolant remove the heater box basically the only thing in front of the front seats will be the bulkhead and the steering column, and about a million lost pay and display tickets.
you put in the heater box dash wiring loom and pipework from the donor car. you'll have to reconnect the coolant pipes to the heater box, flush and refil the system and bleed any air out.
leave the air con pipes open. put the pollen filter in and hope once everything is connected up your car still works as with the difference in the looms the new wiring loom might confuse the more basic system. you may find everything works fine in which case win but you're not home free.
This alone will take 2 - 3 days of work if doing it on your own.
Then tackle the engine bay. Radiator out, condensor attatched and put the lot back in. Compressor needs bolting to the engine, put the new belt on and change the O-rings, make sure they are aircon compatible o-rings, basically every O-ring and seal in the system will need to be new no reusing old seals or you will get leaks and lose all your gas.
You'll need to wire the engine bay with a new engine loom if you have had to change this.
you may then be able to use something like Multi-ECU scan to see if you can electronically toggle the aircon on and off via the software. If you cannot your car's ecu's may not support aircon and the engine and body computer might need to be replaced.
See if you can toggle the engine cooling fan into 1 or two speeds usually aircon cars have a two speed fan with additional wiring and relays. you may need to take the engine fuse box out and rewire these things in from the back or change the fuse box completely with the wiring loom.
Then you will need to get the system professionally gassed up. Take it to a specialist someone who knows how these things work. I wouldn't even recommend taking it to a good garage, only take it to an aircon specialist tell them you have installed the system and tell them you need it fully testing. They will then know to put an appropriate amount of oil in for a new install, I would have dye put in to help identify leaks then it will need gassing up and pressure testing. You can not gas this up with cans from Halfords at it will need to have a vacuum put on the system and held for an hour or so, to make sure there are no obvious or big leaks but also to boil off any moisture in the system. (low pressure causes water to boil at low temperature, it turns to steam and leaves the system via the vacuum if the system has been left open them cold alloy pipes can store a fair amount of water and condensation.
At this point if everything has gone according to plan press the button on the dash and you might have working aircon, again assuming the electronics is talking to each other ok. you may need to code in that the car has aircon now so the car knows to idle up the engine when the aircon is on. there are basic functions built into aircon such as cutting the compressor at wide open throttle, and increasing the idle slightly to prevent stalling when the system is running so the car needs to know to do this in these situations.
Congratulations you have aircon. Its a massive achievement that few people have done, you will have no skin on your knuckles your family will have disowned you for being bloody stupid. You will have given up about a month or two of weekends to get it all done and get it all working. You will be maybe £1000 out of pocket, and you will curse the day you ever had the idea to do this work...
However you will be more comfortable in the summer, just note the insulation on a panda (most small fiats) and so they do not keep cold very well even with aircon. Bigger better insulated cars stay much cooler in the summer compared to little cars.
Thinks you will also need to make sure are in place is a drain from the evaporator which is within the heater box to the engine bay, without this your car will quickly fill up with water and turn moldy.
Honestly from someone who has done this, don't. Just buy a different panda with aircon, you'll at least then keep your sanity.
This
Plus taking the dash to bits you almost certainly end up with a few extra rattles from around it Allways seem to with plastic parts
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Andy forgot to mention that in-order to unbolt the Panda's structural steel tube frame that sits around the heaters, the doors have to come off he car. He should know better. Only Kidding. Note the emoji for those who can't interpret gentle mockery/banter.
This is actually a biggie as a car sitting outside with no doors will quickly deteriorate. You'll have to store the doors without chipping the paint or causing any other damage and not let the inside panels get wet. When refitting time (eventually) comes along, you have to refit the doors without making even more damage and get them properly aligned.
On the Panda you could "just" fit the aircon equipment and ignore any OEM wiring. The engine will probably self-adjust its idle throttle setting but if that's not enough to keep it running against the compressor load, the engine will stall. Alternatively fit an electric motor to power the compressor. But who knows where you'd put it. Panda engine bay is pretty full as it is. Then you'll need a bigger battery with the same space problems.
Note the emoji for those who can't interpret gentle mockery/banter.This is actually a biggie as a car sitting outside with no doors will quickly deteriorate. You'll have to store the doors without chipping the paint or causing any other damage and not let the inside panels get wet. When refitting time (eventually) comes along, you have to refit the doors without making even more damage and get them properly aligned.
On the Panda you could "just" fit the aircon equipment and ignore any OEM wiring. The engine will probably self-adjust its idle throttle setting but if that's not enough to keep it running against the compressor load, the engine will stall. Alternatively fit an electric motor to power the compressor. But who knows where you'd put it. Panda engine bay is pretty full as it is. Then you'll need a bigger battery with the same space problems.
Didn't know about this, I have not found a car yet that I can't get the heating box out without having to remove that lateral crash bar, usually the heater box breaks down into two or three smaller pieces on most cars. If you can't do it on the Panda without taking that bar out then seems logical that you might have to take the doors off. Do you have to get behind the front wings to access all the fastenings?Andy forgot to mention that in-order to unbolt the Panda's structural steel tube frame that sits around the heaters, the doors have to come off he car. He should know better. Only Kidding.
Some cars do need different sound proofing as they don't have the holes in the soundproofing for the aircon pipe or mounting points for the heater box so that's another consideration.
It all adds weight to the argument that is just not worth it.
This is where things get complicated, if you want to take say just the aircon wiring from one loom you have to strip the whole dash loom apart and isolate just the wires for the aircon. They usually feed all through the loom and so by the time you have unwrapped it the dash loom will now be a birds nest of wiring.
I have done this a couple of times when adding rear electric windows to cars. The floor loom of the car is massive and usually needs the whole interior stripping so it is easier to access just the few wires for the electric windows. Its easier to strip looms like this out of the car. I had an unfortunate experience trying to strip a loom once from a scrap yard car that was balanced on the roof of another car and so badly damaged the interior couldn't be stripped and to add insult to injury it was raining. I think I spent two days trying to get the wiring I needed out of the car so it could be added with an OEM finish to the target car.
This will add many many many hours of work to the job. Stripping looms is not only a massive headache of a job but the tape used tends to leave a horrible residue all over the wires which you'll end up with all over you, several years of dirt and grime finds its way into the gaps between the wires.
On your other point the car really does need to know when the air con is on, the computers will do things like turn on the high speed fan if stationary for example. cut the compressor at wide open throttle and if stop start is fitted, it will need to know when and when it cannot stop the stop start. The pressure sensor in the pipework will tell the aircon when to cycle on and off. you can't just apply power to the clutch compressor and leave it constantly running as you'll damage the system, risk blown pipes or a frozen car interior. Like literally a block of ice forming behind the dash.
When you are at idle the car aircon will pressurize and cool the car ok, when you are at 70mph and 3-4000 rpm the compressor will be regularly turning on and off to stop over pressure of the system as the compressor is working at a much higher speed.
It needs to be wired in and controlled properly, you can't bodge it. An electric motor powerful enough to run the aircon pump will still cause a significant mechanical drain via the alternator, assuming you didn't burn out the alternator trying to keep pace. I am sure when I have done the maths in the past you need about 2 - 3 KW to run an aircon compressor which equates to about 250Amps in a 12V system.
Thinking about it, I am sure @Dragon Man put aircon in a scudo van not that long back, but even this is more simple than a newer panda.
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Wow!
But thinking about it - you can hear the engine labouring when the aircon kicks in. 3KW is likely to be the least it demands.
I have to say that swapping stuff out of my bashed up insurance write off 100HP into the Multijet did make some sense. But the total strip down (doors off, etc) was more than enough to put me off. The engine out was a big job (as expected) but that could take as long as I liked. Pulling the body apart to extract every wire, fuse box, and module just to get aircon is plain silly. Oh, and I'd need a bracket to carry alternator and compressor. Imagine trying to fit that between engine and firewall. I had to sort-out the starter motor wiring (horrible job) and that's as simple as a it gets.
1.1 rarely had aircon
The factory manual aircon is controlled by two computers
Finding the right files to reflash the body computer and ECU and some willing to do this will be hard or impossible
Can it be done, yes the cheapest way would be via another complete car
Or
Retro fit a aftermarket system
The factory manual aircon is controlled by two computers
Finding the right files to reflash the body computer and ECU and some willing to do this will be hard or impossible
Can it be done, yes the cheapest way would be via another complete car
Or
Retro fit a aftermarket system
At the end of the day do what us oldies used to do "drive fast with the windows down" . Air con was only on American cars in those days.
We could also adjust the quarter light windows for extra draught.
We could also adjust the quarter light windows for extra draught.
No it will not work
The compressor clutch and sensors are read and operated by the ECU
The 1.1 and 1.2 ECUs are different with different connectors they will not swap over
The mechanical side is the easy part
The wire loom can be altered there's not that much to patch in
However it will not work without the correct software to operate it
It maybe be possible to manually control the compressor clutch. As far as I know nobody has successfully done this a few have tried and given up.
You might lose some driveabilty as the revs ECU will not tell the engine to raise the revs as the button is pressed.
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It's almost certainly possible to manually control the aircon clutch (switch/relay/resistors/etc) but that would just stall an engine running at tick-over speed. However, our 1.2 Panda had manual aircon and throttle cable. I dont know how it compensates the tickover for the compressor load. Maybe the compressor pulls minimal power at low speeds and the idle control valve is capable of handling it.
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Old aircon systems would have two pressure sensors high and low pressure sensors, all connected in series. If the pressure went too low, the low pressure sensor would cut the power to the compressor clutch, if the pressure goes too high it cuts the power. All based on preset pressure settings.
Modern systems use a sensor that measures the actual pressure rather than just being a switch, sends this to the ECU and then the ecu controls power to the clutch.
If you just connect a switch to the clutch, yes it may run, yes it may get cold but without pressure management, it would blow the pipes apart in no time, maybe a couple of minutes. Unless you’re happy to be turning the aircon on and off manually every few seconds.
This just isn’t going to work or be practical
