I want to add after market air conditioning to my 1962 Mark II 3.8 with automatic transmission that I acquired last year. Living in the northeast United States (Connecticut) in the hot and humid days of the summer makes this practically a necessity to enjoy the car throughout the year. I would greatly appreciate any information from members of the group about their knowledge and experience with doing this, ie: products used, cost of installation customer satisfaction, reliability, photos or anything else. My research so far shows a couple manufacturers but I don't have any personal experience with any air conditioned Mark II's. Thanks.

 

Go to the end of this thread and work your way back.
Lots here from Thorsen.

https://www.jaguarforums.com/forum/m...260785/page15/

I'm sure there are DYI kits available too, others will know better.

 

As Jeff wrote, read Thorsen. He's not only doing great work, but raising relevant issues. The smaller boot (trunk) of the Mk2 might make the trunk option less attractive to you and make a under dash/under hood more convenient. Also in Connecticut, you might want a good demist option in the winter.

I tend to be a bit mean about these 'accessories', but some of the professional retrofits look expensive compared with DIY and secondhand.

 

a friend in Washington state imported a '64 MK-2 from an Asian country that had a/c installed.

It is an under dash unit with its evaporator, fan, and controls in a plastic case, typical of the 1960's systems fitted to small cars.

I ended buying the system from him because it had the small condenser that fits behind the grille in my '65 S type, the hoses, compresor with pulley, and the compressor support bracket.

Does it still work ? No clue but surely it can be refurbished. I just never got around to installing it.

 

There are a number of options for installing AC, but I don't think any of them are ideal, or will give you modern levels of performance. Ideally, the cool air should blow on you, and that's difficult to do in a Mark 2, simply because of the shallow space between the firewall and the fascia, even assuming that you're willing to cut up the wood. There just isn't space behind the fascia for ducting.

Broadly speaking, there is the in trunk (rear mount) evaporators that will cool the cabin, the underdash systems that mount in the passengers footwell and a system that mounts where the battery is and runs ducts under the bottom edge of the dash to vents hung under the fascia. All have drawbacks, and most will require a fair bit of fabrication.

For all of the systems, you'll need to make brackets for a compressor and adapt a belt system, as the original double groove belt was only made in 4 lengths. You'd probably want to upgrade to an alternator to handle the electrical loads, and that creates further complication if you have power steering. There is limited space for a condenser in front of the radiator, and you'll need an electric fan to give sufficient airflow for cooling in hot weather.

It's all doable, but a Mark 2 is a difficult car to retrofit effective AC into.

 

As mentioned above, I'm working on putting AC into my 1967 420. If you don't want to read the whole thread here are the Cliff Notes from my research. I'm assuming the 420 and MkII are similar in the small amount of space behind the dash. Here are the options:
- Use one of the kits on the market to add AC. RetroAir and ClassicAutoAir both make kits. The part that I didn't like about the kits is that (1) the evaporator box is mounted in the engine compartment (and must be well-insulated against under-hood heat to preserve efficiency) and (2) it requires you to drill 4 holes in your firewall. I passed on that option pretty early.

- Mount a universal AC evaporator in the passenger footwell compartment and run ducting across the lower parcel shelf. In my opinion this is a much better choice than above but I didn't want to sacrifice the passenger foot space. After experimenting with two different AC evaporator boxes I abandoned this idea.

- Install a trunk-mounted AC unit like Jaguar did back in the day. You have two paths here - find an original kit (which are available) or use a modern trunk-mounted system. While there is a lot to be said about originality I also wanted an efficient system. I researched three of the modern trunk mounted units and went with this one. I also considered this unit and this unit. The disadvantage of the trunk-mount system is that while it cools the air in the car, you loose some of the evaporating cooling effect of having the cold air blow on your face. How much of a difference does that make? I don't know but ask me in 5 months. In my car I can aim at the vents right at the back of my neck so it might not be that bad.

At the end of the day you have to decide if you want holes in your firewall, a considerable loss of passenger footwell space, or if you can live without cold air blowing on your face.

 

Well said Thomas!

 

Thanks. This was very helpful.