Thursday, June 14, 2012

This is cool!

Awhile back when I was still running the ADC 9", I had installed the air conditioner around Fall time or so. Before summer hit, the ADC motor went out. Replacing with a Netgain Warp 9 I soon found out that only the transmission bolt patterns matched. The accessory side did not. The accessory output shaft was larger, the motor diameter, slightly larger. A few little things that made my existing AC setup worthless.

Now that I'm driving to work again, and the heat is coming, I figured it was time to rebuild the AC system. There was quite a bit of machine work needed, so luckily my uncle Duane had some time yesterday. The main pulley was bored out to 7/8" and a new key way made. A thin bushing was made that went on the shaft first. This slid to the furthest inward point on the shaft and allowed us to tighten against that and not allow anything to slowly walk in and rub on the housing. Next, I reinstalled the Netgain RPM sensor and finally the main pulley went back on. A 3/8" bolt, custom washer, and some Loctite then went on to keep everything in place. The mounting brackets base had to be cut and slid outwards about 1/4" to account for the new position of the main pulley.

Here are some pictures of the final system. You can see I reused the auto tension pulley from the original serpentine belt system. I reused the same belt I purchased the first time I did the AC. Luckily it was still the right length even after the positioning of the components shifted a bit.



I took it out for a drive today after I finished. It was about 92F outside, so not too bad but hot enough when the top is up to make you start sweating pretty quick. I turned on the AC and instantly the temperature dropped to a very comfortable level and remained there for a quick 10 mile test. Too cool! No more hot days driving home.

The heat from the condenser now passes right by my motor controller and that heat sink. I'm now noticing the temperature of my motor controlling running much hotter. I'll be replacing that heat sink next with one where fins run parallel with the wind, compared to perpendicular as they do now. More on that later.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

Great job on intalling the ac system. Now you can drive in the hot summer days and stay cool.