Re: 1955 Packard air conditioning

Posted by HH56 On 2017/8/17 9:09:49

Quote:
I have also wondered why Packard chose the left as it took some engineering work to relocate the oil filter. ARA also copied the factory and had their compressor on the left. ARA made another bracket for the oil filter and mounted it using the water pump manifold bolts rather than mount the filter on the compressor bracket so at least that was a sort of improvement.

My theory is because of the heater Packard just decided to run all the AC plumbing into the car on the less congested left side. To keep it simple and avoid hoses needing to cross over the engine they mounted the compressor on that side too. Not sure what ARA's reasoning was because their hoses do cross over.

My gripe with the factory mount is it really limits access to the thermostat. You need to unbolt the filter and remove the compressor and bracket to reach the silly thing but the short AC hose to the firewall doesn't allow much movement of the bracket.