[ddsmith]

This is installment two in a series of how many it takes to describe the installation.

One of the items that would be nice to get out of the way would be duct hose installation. To start with, if your truck originally was air equipped, this particular piece of information may make you happy. My kit came with a center vent that you could install on a truck without A/C originally but it only has one inlet port. I started looking at it and looking at my original center vent and determined that I liked the distribution(two inlets) of my original vent and the front piece on the new vent. I was able to remove the chrome front of the new vent and place it on the old back piece. This gives it the best of both worlds. Two defrost hoses get run from the units oblong duct to the defrost ducts. A oblong Y distributor is used to allow this hookup. The driver side defrost hose routes above the radio area. If your truck was not an original A/C truck you'll have to cut openings in the dash center section and also were the driver and passenger side A/C vents need to go. I can not comment on the two side vents because mine were the original ones and no other side vents were supplied in my kit. With the defrost hose hooked up move on to the A/C vent hoses. Place adapters over original A/C driver and passenger side vents. Route the hoses as required to the 4 round outlets on the top of the A/C unit. Two of these hoses will route to the center vent if using the original center vent or modified new vent. You'll only have three hoses if using the new center vent. They supply a cap to install to one of the four ducts at the top of the unit if only three hoses are used. Make sure when routing hoses that you take into consideration the defrost cable must route to the defrost damper on the drivers side top of the unit, but isn't installed yet. Once this routing is complete you may wish to reinstall your radio. Leave the ashtray and vent control out until later.

Now we can move back to the outside. Let's work on the compressor install a little. The bracket supplied comes with a caution that they will not accept a return if it has been painted or plated. Test fit prior to painting. So how about a little check. The big problem would be you got a left versus right side mount. I just eyeballed how it was to hook up and painted the bracket. Once the bracket is dry you can install the bracket in place. This requires removal of two water pump bolts and two intake manifold bolts. Installation is relatively easy. The kit said to get between a 54 and a 55" belt. I got 54.5" and it turned out to be to long. Fortunately for me I also got an alternator belt which was 53.5" and that worked great for me.

The next part of the installation is the condenser and drier. If you have an original A/C truck you may run into a little trouble trying to install the condenser. I chose to use the original holes for mounting the condenser. The problem was that the bottom holes are in a very difficult location to allow access without ripping out the shroud, radiator and etc. I'm a little on the lazy side and didn't want to do that so I taped a nut and lockwasher on a piece of wire. I used welding filler wire but any straight stiff piece of wire will work. I installed a bolt through the hole and lowered the nut and lockwasher on the wire to hold it to allow engagement of the nut. Then I was able to hold the nut with my hand while tightening the bolt. If you have a none A/C truck you attach the condenser with self tapping machines screws. That's why it's easier. With the condenser mounted, you can move on to the drier. The drier gets attached loosely to the front of the core support on the passenger side of the condenser following the directions supplied. Install the aluminum line from the condenser to the drier. Make sure to use lubricated o-rings at the joints. The lube which is refrigerant oil is supplied in the kit in white tubes which are not marked. Now comes the fun part. There is a opening in the core support between the drier and the condenser. It is about two inches in diameter and needs to have a grommet installed. If the truck was original then I would just pulled the original one out and slit it to allow tube installation, place the aluminum tubes in the grommet and reinstalled it back in place. The killer grommet piece is the one that gets installed under the front of the battery tray. It is very difficult to get the grommet installed in the space that is available. It needs to be installed to prevent the aluminum lines from being chaffed on the steel. This is probably more important if the original grommet is not used. You can now connect the aluminum lines which come through the grommet to the condenser and drier. With the proper lubricated o-rings. I had a small problem here because the picture they supplied did not match how the lines needed installed. I needed to bend the aluminum lines a small amount to provide adequate clearance to prevent tubing wear at the upper condenser fitting. The next step involves installing the support bracket to the battery tray. If you have an A/C truck this bracket is already installed. If not, using the supplied template mark the battery tray and drill as required to attach. Make sure that the aluminum A/C lines are not punctured by the drill. Install the pressure switch in the aluminum line with the port. Now install the tubing support bracket to the mounting plate. Well I think that's it for this installment.