Another way to skin the cat; the High Torque 292 LS swap

[smbrouss70]

So how did the A/C turn out? Any pics?

[dayj1]

Originally Posted by smbrouss70

So how did the A/C turn out? Any pics?

I started by mounting the stock truck A/C compressor.

Notice in this pic that the bracket extends behind the compressor by a couple of inches. That's important because it interfered with the engine mount.



So, I marked the bracket even with the back of the compressor and cut it off:





Here's the fit of the trimmed bracket:



And the compressor:



A little paint:



And bolted up for good:

[dayj1]

I bought a universal 14" x 24" parallel flow condenser on eBay. I made a three bracket mounting system as well as a bracket for the receiver/drier:




I called Vintage Air and ordered the 3 hard lines that are used in their condenser kits to mount the receiver drier and run through the core support and under the battery. Here it is mounted.:



I made this simple bracket:



To hold the end of the hard lines under the battery box:

[dayj1]

The last major component of the system is the evaporator. I bought a universal under dash unit off eBay. Here are a couple of pictures of it mounted:





In case someone tries to duplicate my setup, there was a major problem with the evaporator unit as delivered. It moved very little air through the core. Upon inspection, I noticed that the blower motor was rotating the wrong direction! Since it's a DC motor, that's a simple fix. Just swap the positive and negative leads going to the bower motor. That made things much,much better but I made one more "improvement". I swapped the blower motor fan blades side for side. This result is that it reversed the slope of the blades. A squirrel cage fan will move a higher volume of air with reverse pitched blades than with forward pitched blades.

[dayj1]

The last part of the system is the lines. I already mentioned that I used hard lines from Vintage Air on the condenser.

The discharge line from the compressor to the condenser required some fabrication. I started with the end of a condenser line from a 2000 Tahoe that picked up from the salvage yard. I bent it up as needed and added a M10 switch port fitting and a weld on bead lock fitting.

Here is is before welding:



And a closer pic of the joints to be welded:



Here it is finish welded and crimped:





Here's the compressor suction line:



And a better pic of the compressor end:



And here are the evaporator hoses that go inside the cab:



The bulkhead fittings on the end of the evap lines exit the cab just above the heater box:



Here's an overall shot of the lines:



At the firewall:



The compressor:

[dayj1]

The result:



That's at idle. Moving down the road, the vent temp drops to about 37/38*.

The A/C compressor came with my motor, so the components that I had to buy are:

A/C Belt 19.31
Evaporator 69
Condenser 57
Hard Lines 71.19
Drier 12.99
Switch Port 5.2
Fittings/Hose 114.95
Misc (bolts/sheet metal/etc) 20.18
O-rings 5.44
PAG oil 8.99
134a 24.98

Total: $409.23

So, was it worth it?

It works pretty well. We've had a few days in the high 90s lately and the A/C has kept me comfortable but it didn't turn it down, either. I think it could use a larger condenser and evaporator, but, for the price, I'd do it again.