Re: 1956 Packard 400 After Market Vintage Air Conditioning

Posted by HH56 On 2014/4/6 12:23:26

The outlet is a fairly thin stamping so another thing to check is make sure previous tightenings have not distorted the holes and sealing surface as happens frequently with oil pans.

Not sure what your AC bracket looks like but in addition to Keiths suggestion of checking the brackets flatness to head, a different tightening approach might work -- if there is room.

On mine, I didn't want to disturb the outlet gasket and seal if the compressor had to remove so I changed the bolts to studs and installed the outlet first using a separate pair of thin jam nuts. If you have separate spacers for your bracket, change those to thinner ones to allow for the thickness of nuts. Then install the bracket over the nuts and spacers and add final washers and nuts to the studs to hold the bracket. The fit to head is still important but you can get by with being a tad off better with the second nut approach & you can enlarge the holes a bit so the bracket can tolerate a little tilt.

If your bracket has built in spacers like the factory cast bracket, you can still do the same thing but you will have to add a shim on the head side the same thickness as the nuts. Possibly also need to enlarge the bracket side to head holes slightly to account for the raised height being slightly offset from the threaded head holes. I used this approach and with the thin 7/32 jam nuts, used a length of 3/16" x 1" flat bar as a shim. Also did the enlarged holes for the slight mismatch.

With either approach, it is easily reversible and back to stock for anyone who wishes to reverse the change.