Re: aftermarket ac

Posted by HH56 On 2015/6/27 20:21:53

There have been quite a few but I doubt you will find two identical. I would bet Ross has probably installed more than anyone and maybe can give some pointers. Best of my knowledge no one has offered a kit of any kind for a Packard so not much available to just bolt in.

You will have to make your own compressor mount and figure out the belt drive but Ross posted some photos of a mount he made that is simple, very functional and inexpensive. The belt drive is an issue unless you can find a crank pulley. Otherwise you will have to tolerate a single long belt driving everything and get creative in mounting and/or relocating components. Some have used a dual groove arrangement on the compressor with the second groove driving another component instead of a long belt. Neither is as good as a proper crank pulley but AFAIK no one repros the crank pulley for that engine. 53-4 factory pulleys are around but usually expensive if you find one. If the vibration damper has provision for the PS pulley and the car does not have PS that is an option. You may be able to stack two PS pulleys providing you get some spacers and longer bolts but I don't remember anyone mentioning doing it.

A bigger problem is the 6v since there are no modern 6v units made. To get around the voltage problem, several have converted the cars to 12v, others have run the units on a separate 12v battery and manually charge that as needed or have an additional alternator. Still others have used non electronic controlled units where the blower speed is by a rheostat or a regular multi speed switch so blower will still function --albeit at a slower speed and output-- on 6v. There are no dual shaft 6v motors but there are modern single shaft universal 6v heater motors which can be swapped in with a bit of work if you get a unit that only has a single shaft motor. Clutches on the few units running on 6v rely on the 7+ volts that is typically available when the generator is charging to bring in the regular 12v clutch on a Sanden compressor. The clutches will not pull in at 6v but will at slightly over 7v.

Some of us have gone overkill elaborate and have combination systems where the car is still 6v with the AC powered by both the regular system and a series/parallel battery arrangement. The AC gets the needed 12v with batteries in series when turned on but when turned off batteries revert back to parallel so the extra battery can be charged by the generator.