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Has anyone here done an aftermarket ac addition to a stock 1951-54 Packard?

Thanks John

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.

Thanks for the info. Hadn't really thought about the 6 volt problem. Though for a driver, I'd probably go to 12 volt and an alternator. I wonder if a 135hp 288 would have enough power for air conditioning?

John

This is a subject I am studying because of my early 1950s Buick which I want to air condition.
I am considering creating a separate 12 Volt system just for the air conditioning, and leaving everything else as-is.
Your car will have plenty of power especially with a modern, high-efficiency compressor. You have to do three things to have a successful air conditioning project: turn the compressor; power the fans and the compressor clutch; cool the condenser and the engine.
Be sure you have enough current to power everything, and be sure you have enough fan and radiator and it is in good condition. I recommend an electric auxiliary fan, and maybe even a modern engine-driven fan with a thermal clutch and a shroud. This should give you a happy setup.

All good ideas but I would wonder about the electric fan and if it was needed. If you do use one how will you power it. Others have been asking about the fan not so much for AC but for cars that seem to have persistent overheating problems.

For use with AC, my thinking is if 12v and off the separate 12v battery, current draw is tolerable but with the AC and fan both pulling off the battery I would think it would quickly discharge unless you plan on the separate alternator to keep it charged. On Packards that kind of leads up to the belt drive dilemma. No idea how Buicks compare with Packards in the space and extra pulley dept so maybe not as much an issue.

I believe there is a 54 in AZ with the separate 12v battery and a very small 12v alternator to keep it charged. Think it is driven by an extra groove on the compressor. Haven't seen photos but IIRC the owner said the alternator is mounted on the same bracket adjacent to or below the compressor. Also no idea if he has a PS pump to contend with. Packards version PS pump takes up considerable space and would be another item to worry about.

If you go with a 6v fan I would really wonder if the stock 6v charging setup would be able to handle all the extra current it would need. Believe some of those 6v fans draw 20-25 amps at full speed and since most 6v systems only put out 30-35 max that doesn't leave much extra for ignition or radio or headlights. Another alternator probably would be needed or have you already made that conversion.

Compressor HP can be calculated*, but will depend on the size and type compressor, refrigerant gas, and how it's operated and mechanically linked/pulley ratios. If you're using a modern belt driven auto centrifugal compressor, you're roughly in the 5 HP range, if it's a period recip, up to 20. You should choose vendors based on efficiency.
Another thing to consider is the idle rpms. Maybe too low, for much cooling at stops without major re-pulleying.
Kinda why they didn't have much A/C back then until they improved the compression and HP with the OHV motors. Even a massive flat V12 was putting out about half as much HP, relatively speaking. And it only had to be a more comfortable mode than a horse or a bus to sell.
Depending on where you locate the hot side HX, it may or may not impact the radiator temp. If you put it in front of radiator, which it wasn't designed for, then you might have cooling issues. You can lower that temperature with the right refrigerant, but the EPA didn't hear me say that.
If you're not going to drive it much, adding more batteries, voltages, and alternators is more maintenance not justified. Hence the rise of the resto mod...or the leave it alone original.
* - should be listed by the vendor because that's essentially the "size" also.

Kinda why they didn't have much A/C back then until they improved the compression and HP with the OHV motors. Even a massive flat V12 was putting out about half as much HP, relatively speaking

Not really - the 12 and the 356 had equal or superior HP to early OHV V8's (e.g. Cadillac)

The lack of AC being offered by mfgs in the postwar period has kind of intrigued me as to why not.

Packard and Cadillac had it prewar and while it may not have been as efficient and compact as later systems it worked and didn't seem to unduly tax the engines. You would have thought they could have carried over those systems in the immediate postwar years as they did so many other things. Particularly Packard because the model they sold postwar was identical to a model offering AC prewar. I can understand the pent up demand meant mfgs could sell anything and didn't need to have it to make a sale but that demand went away after a year or two and the mfgs still didn't offer AC again until 53.

There must have been some aftermarket suppliers working postwar. A 48 or 9 Henney ad in the literature section states AC was an option on a few models of their cars so somebody had to be making that unit. A custom made 52 Packard limo has an aftermarket system although it is not clear when that car was completed. The point is units were apparently available in that postwar period yet no one offered them for some reason. I'd really be curious to find if it was a technical reason or if not, what the thinking was. The few books that even mention early AC kind of gloss over 46-53 -- probably because none of the mfgs offered anything.

The pre-war system needed to be refined to not be "all or nothing." Adding the means for a disabling clutch, temperature modulation and better ice prevention improved the post-war systems. Recall that engineering resources were spread between several emerging luxury technologies (PS, PB, AT, PW were all being refined also)so AC was not the top priority

You're probably right. Developing automatics and PS et al would sell more cars than AC but still since they had already developed a unit that would bolt right in -- even though it was somewhat crude, it worked -- I think just offering it would have differentiated them more from the competition.

I guess after the war crush was over they couldn't sell that many expensive models as it was so maybe AC would not have sold either. At least Packard mgt must have thought it wasn't worth spending much on. They proved that in the way they treated AC even after it was brought back. The same 53 unit Cadillac and Packard bought from Frigidaire was much more refined in the Cadillac version than in the Packard version. In 54 Cadillac refined theirs farther but Packards version stayed the same.