This is mine ac driver side vintage air.  I think is easyer stay on driver side cause battery and tray are in the pipe way . Hope mine pics help you  , but why not consider to move the battery to trunk if you want to stay ac on pass side. ?  as you can see i got bigger rad and pipes are close but in the place should be . The only suggestion i can give you is to stay away from v belt and go with serpentine

I like the idea of hard lines. One of them will need to turn flexible as soon as it enters the engine compartment to connect to the compressor. Where will that connection be? Will it be accessible.

Under the battery tray sounds good, but goes back to how accessible will it be. I would stay away from beside the battery. It could interfere with other stuff. Have you thought about going into the fender well and coming through the fender apron?? Hoses from the fire wall could also go into the fender well. It would make a clean installation. If hose from the firewall stay in engine compartment, have you thought about how you would route those?

You can make test routes with the hoses they have you. Just don’t cut them yet!!

Clothes hangers can be your friend for mocking up a hard line. It will let you know if the piece can be installed as bent. It’s also cheap practice for bending the tubing. You can verify that the tubing is loaded in a bender the right direction to get the bend you want. Even after 20 years as an electrician, it was still easy to screw up the second conduit bend if you weren’t paying attention.

Got the hoses that came with the kit out and starting looking at routing options.  I was hoping the two lines from the firewall could come out and go down near motor mount then route up to appropriate location but there isn't enough room around the header.  

I thought about these two lines running up higher on the shock tower then route down after they pass the shock tower. This is an option and doesn't look terrible but the lines came with 90 degree fittings that connect at firewall and making it difficult to get a good sweeping route.

I could cut those ends off and crimp new straight ends on.

I did thing about buying two of those two fitting bulk heads. I could use the 90 degree fittings and run two hoses off the firewall to a bulk head on inner apron. Then connect to hoses run on backside of apron to in front of the shock tower then install another bulk head.  Then I could use a short hose from there directly across to compressor and other line up to the core support. Those bulk heads are about $40 each so would be out $80 but would probably look pretty good.

1fststang wrote:

I have a serpentine set up on mine and it is with the AC compressor on passenger side below alternator.

There isn't a ton of room on passenger side but its only 2 lines so there should be enough area to run them thru core support where the hoses will attach.

I thought about moving battery to trunk but didn't feel it was worth the effort.

I think once I work out the details the hoses won't be a focal point and will be down low and out of the way.

Now that i see this beautitul job i got to shut my mouth and open my eyes !   for sure i got to learn a lot !!   I  like it really good looking !   So clean  and sharp  !  

Hello 6 sally 6  pleased to hear you again !   ...   happy that you like my " american - italian " writing   ..... My friends in usa  are always funny when hear from me speaking with typical italian accent on a good english spoken !  
i miss so much !  I need to come back for a long stay ....too many place to see  .... one day i will come back !  
Ciao !!!!

Got my straight pieces of hard line in from Vintage air.  I bent and routed them through under battery tray like I mentioned. All worked out ok. The #10 line runs to compressor and stopped just a little short underneath the battery tray so you won't see anything but a short hose routed out to compressor. The other line runs to the firewall/evap and I ran it just past edge of battery tray. It has a service port and wanted to keep it readily accessible. This line will then route up and around shock tower. I will buy or fab up something to secure the lines.  All in all seems to be working out.

I hope you are going to paint all that stuff flat black.  I always think stuff looks kind of out of place when you can see bright and shiny poking through the grille when it looks cleaner not showing.  Like aluminum radiators or ac condensers or plumbing or, God forbid, an electric fan.  Some guys like that stuff showing.  I hate it.  But, if it is going to show, make sure everything is ship shape!