Hi Guys,

I’m looking at fitting air conditioning to my 2wd Saff. Can someone that has A/C fitted to there Saff please post some pics of the compressor location/pulleys so I can see the belt arrangement and compressor location? Are there any companies in the UK that sell an “A/C kit” to suit a Saff?

Thanks for the help

 

id like to know this too.

 

it's not that simple. it's relatively straightforward to fit a compressor and drive it, and then fit a condenser in front of the radiator, but what about the evaporator (the bit that goes in the cabin to cool the air)?

on sierra's with factory fit A/C, they have a different bulkhead to house it, as it must be between the blower and the heater matix.

to fit it to a shell that didn't have a/c from the factory, you're either going to have to make a custom hvac unit, or add a second blower and evaporator unit.

i wouldn't bother doing it, and i'm a test engineer for the worlds biggest independant automotive a/c parts manufacturer! having said that, i don't live in bastard hot australia.

 

thanks for the interesting info im glad ive not started to get the bits, seems a shame tho.I take it theres no room at the mo on my 2wd shell ?

 

ac cars have a different blukhead

i'll get some pics when i get the chance to show you how much more there is on the AC side of things

 

LMAO

 

opposite lock it's not impossible. you just need to be able to fit an evaporator in between the blower and the heater matrix. that could possibly be done by raising up the blower and having it in between in a custom made box. but you've also got to consider the need for a condensate drain, what expansion valve and evaporator to use that match the rest of the system, pipes etc.

not easy, but not impossible.

 

Thanks for the replies.

There are a few companies here that fit aftermarket A/C kits to cars (cost 1,150 pounds) however to be honest i really didn't want to leave my Saff with them . There are 2 Saffs that have had the kits fitted and do work quiet well. I know/seen that they had removed the stock heater box and replaced it with there own heater/evaporator/fan unit and the A/C compressor was mounted under the power steering pump. I'm not to shore on the rest of the parts though.

I was hoping that the parts to convert the Saff to A/C were still available and that it would have been a matter of simply buying and fitting the parts but it seems its not as straight forward as I thought.

I think I will bite the bullet and wait till winter and then book my car in as they tend to drop there price over winter.

Yeah the weather here in Australia is a real bastard…………..Great one day and perfect the next

 

BMEP

their conversion sounds reasonable. do you know what compressors they use? (i work for a compressor manufacturer)

sorry i haven't replied on the plenum spacer topic. not had time to put all of my thoughts into words yet

 

foreigneRS,

Hi Mate,

Unfortunately I have no idea to the make/model of the compressor that they use Based on your experience being in the field, are there different sized compressors? for instance would a compressor in a Ford Fiesta be physically smaller than say a compressor in a large Merc or BMW? And what pros/cons would there be if the compressor was small rather than large in its physical size? Less power drag on engine/not as efficient in cooling etc

RE; Plenum Spacer thread.

I’m not too fussed to be honest as a similar second thread was posted too. I was tempted, but to be honest if 10 people were asked there opinion id say that there would be 10 different answers

 

generally, you're thinking is correct.

the compressor is sized with the rest of the system components to the vehicle size and climate.

if your compressor is too big, it will provide more cooling than either the evaporator can handle (will tend to freeze into a solid block of ice unless the electromagnetic clutch is released), or can be emmitted from the condenser (pressure in the system will be too high and efficiency will be low).

if the compressor is too small, the cabin will not be able to be cooled under high load (like you have in australia often, but we don't in UK very often).

however, that is generally speaking about compressors with a fixed displacement, i.e. one rotation of the compressor displaces 160cc of refrigerant or whatever. the difficulty with all of that is, that the faster the engine runs, the faster the compressor runs, and the more cooling power it has.

what we have now, are compressors that can self regulate their displacement to the amount of cooling required. if you require a high cooling load, the compressor will work at maximum displacement to do as much cooling as possible, but if it is a cooler day or you have already cooled the cabin down or the compressor is running at high speed, the compressor can reduce it's displacement accordingly to keep the evaporator temperature just above freezing point.

with that type of compressor, of course the losses are much lower when it's running in reduced stroke. but you still need to reheat the air to get a comfortable vent temperature sometimes.

even newer technology is to electronically set the temperature at the vents / in the evaporator to which the compressor controls to so that you pump even less and don't need reheat.

there are also electrically powered compressors available that are used on the various electric only and hybrid vehicles that are commercially available, but you need at least a 42V power supply to reduce the current enough to be able to supply >6kW

i hope that you find all of that interesting, if not necessarily useful

 

foreigneRS,

Thanks for that informative explanation . It helps understand the working’s of a/c a bit better and helps out for things to look out for