S1 3.8 VN how to remove a/c

[PUSHIN]

wrote the following before i wrote this, but figured i'm better off cutting to the chase rather then everybody read all the details. HOW DO I REMOVE THE AIR CONDITIONING FROM MY VN. it's a series 1 vn calais, has climate control.

Also i have already done several search's about this topic, and found next to nothing, very undetailed information, etc.

alright so over the last few days, we had some mad heat.. and well usually i dont use my a/c because it would make my engine make a VERY loud clicking noise on idle, was unsure of why and whatnot, so i never used it, until yesterday i tried.. she aint so cold no more.. :/ so i decided it's probably ready to be removed from the car, as i'm fitting extractors soon anyway, and honestly, for a component i don't use, it's just in the way.. plus, theres always that issue of dead weight,

now i want to do this PROPERLY. i've already purchased a drive belt to suit a vn minus a/c, and beleive it or not, a p plater (me) did the right thing!! went to the local radiator and air con joint, and got the gas PROPERLY removed!! i was willing to pay the $50 i was qouted, but thanks to the owner being a family friend, i got it for free. (however, for anyone thinking of being a fool and doing it themselves, when i took the car there, one of the workers told me of a person who recently released the gas from his car into the air, had a green freak neighbour, and end result, he now has to attend court, possibility of a VERY hefty fine, i was told 6 figures... OUCH. OR five years imprisonment. but this is just POSSIBLE, depending on the court case.. this was just what i was told, dont know how true it is, but i'd like to beleive it personally.)

so by saying i want to do it properly, i dont just want to use the shortened belt to pass the a/c pulley, and electrically disconnect it, i want it all GONE. four bolts holding the compressor mount, easy. pipes, easy. climate control thing, easy. but whaaaat else..?? e.g, how do i go about removing the condenser? and what else? any help, VERY much appreciated thanks guys/girls!

Also, if we can get some kind of a decent run through of it up.. might be worth making a how to of it.. as i said i couldn't find bugger all on it, but i've seen a few people ask of it and stuff without too much answers, and what better for answers then a how to?

[Chrispy]

To remove the Condenser and reciever/drier you have to remove the front bar, pretty simple job of unbolting everything and taking it out. Depending how much you want to remove you could get rid of the evaporator and heater core but you'll have to remove the dash to get to them.

to be honest with ya I wouldn't bother, If you never use it just leave it in there you're going to get fk all gains from removing the weight of the air con system, even if it doesn't blow cold the heater is still useful in winter, you don't need to remove the compressor to install extractors and I fail to see how it's "in the way".

Just my opinion on things..

[savage1987]

Just take out anything you can reach and/or see, leave the under dash stuff alone unless you want to do a tonne of pointless work that'll only devalue the car further

[Krisp]

Just take out anything you can reach and/or see, leave the under dash stuff alone unless you want to do a tonne of pointless work that'll only devalue the car further

You mean like attacking ones chasis rail with a sledge hammer? Anyway i had a vn without aircond, and damn did it have some balls. Leave the heater in, just remove the pipes on the outside and make a blanking plate for the two pipes that go into the evapourator under the window wipers.

[PUSHIN]

Cheers for the inputs guys! much apprecaited!! so these two pipes that go into the evapourator under the windscreen wipers that krisp has suggested be sealed, they'll be left open after removing compresser and condenser right?? and off an inspection i had today, there could be a couple of holes that will need plugging, is there any plugs i can get from repco, supercheap, bursons, etc etc that will work for this?? (any specific ones or is it just a have a look and hope something will fit..? :/) or is there any other methods of sealing them?

Krisp; Where's the sledgehammer needed?? O.o i don't see when that would EVER be necissary.. and yeah, vn's aren't the best of cars, but if i seen someone trying to acheive something GOOD attacking the chassis rail with a sledgehammer, i'd be having STRONG words with them. also, You may or may not find, alot of 3.8L vn's have some balls to be honest, until i jumped in a turbo'd 180sx yesterday (which may i add, has quite a large amount of boost, pulls 0-120 in well under 8 seconds, only went up the road and back, had the same pull in third that my vn does in first) but until i'd felt that, i thought my vn was "OK" sure, has some work to be done, but it does alright for a (near) stocker.

Chrispy; Thank you very much for your input, seems a simple task (love this about commodores hey, however even though it always seems simple, or genuinely IS SIMPLE, half of it hates working for me -.-) but as for the compressor, I spoke to a wrecker about the extractors, (i actually purchased them from this particular person, near new.) he said they're a bitch to fit, and will take some time. my reply was "changed my engine mounts last january, couldn't be too much worse then that right" "you should have done it when you did that, you'll have to remove your compressor....." he went on a bit, suggested i loosen my p/s rack to make life easier, i'm leaving that as a LAST resort, i dont care if it takes me an extra two hours, i dont wanna screw with my steering, i beleive i actually contacted two more people JUST about the fitting of extractors and what needs to be done, i'm pretty sure a local shop said the same. Also, i dont expect GREAT gains from the weight reduction given in removing the a/c components, however; when converting necessary parts to the new car, i can leave out any un-needed parts, and almost any luxury item that ISNT needed for a roadworthy, all of the lost weight should equal out to atleast 40-50kg, not much, but hell, given the future this car has planned for it, it's the least i can do. ohh, and also, i can think of two times in the past 12 months that my compressor has been in my way, (there could have been more times too, i have a pretty bad memory at times) when i changed my engine mounts, the compresser mount had to be removed to alow for clearance i beleive, and also, i changed some wiring a couple of months back, changing the starter motor wiring was nice and snug, and fun and all the rest of it thanks to the compressor However, you stated they're just your opinions, hell mate you hardly need to state that, your MORE then entitled to your opinions and i respect them, i personally just dont see use for my a/c, and in my past experiences, it's pushed my opinion to be when i ain't usin' it, it's just a blatent pain in my behind. (working around inparticular.. but eh, i'm VERY weird, i'd better put that out there before we go too far.)

Savage; Spot on mate, exactly what i was thinking, bit of a story actually hey.. cars kinda buggered and whatnot, someone decided to play dodgem's with me and hit me up the ass (may i add, the person driving my car was actually ON THE ACCELERATOR at which point, just hit 60k's, then bam.) SO, this has resulted in a FULLY empty vn shell sitting in my back yard, slowly been building her up over the last two months, have a complete body minus front bumper, just waiting on paint, the i'll work at carpet, interior, etc. i have a spare dash for her sitting out the back, and in the process of converting all the electrical components of the current vn to the bare shell out the back, i'll INTENTIONALLY leave out all the a/c parts in the dash, until then i WILL NOT go to the effort of removing my dash, went there for my immobiliser switch, not worth it lol. But cheers for your input mate, and thats exactly what i plan to do

i suppose, to explain a bit.. i know i should probably leave it in, but i honestly CAN NOT find a reason to keep it all.. i NEVER use it, litterally had it on maybe ten times since april last year, and that was generally only on for a maximum of two minutes, two or three times to demist the front windscreen, the rest were for examples of why i dont like using it, so pretty much i dont see the point of it being there.. PLUS, in a few months i'm going to be building a shell i have sitting in the back yard, ground up with the engine, transmission, and half of the electrics from the vn i currently drive, and the rest (suspension, brakes, etc) with "performance" parts. so the way i look at it, NO i'm not ripping my dash out to get all the crap from under there now, but when i'm putting the insides in the new vn, theres NO WAY i'm putting the a/c components in when i never use them.. and yeah in my opinion, in the mean time i may aswell get rid of anything thats easy to remove..

[savage1987]

Krisp; Where's the sledgehammer needed?? O.o i don't see when that would EVER be necissary.. and yeah, vn's aren't the best of cars, but if i seen someone trying to acheive something GOOD attacking the chassis rail with a sledgehammer, i'd be having STRONG words with them.

from this thread (boring til pg16)








Not so much the rail itself as the little lip on it, but yes, a sledgehammer was used here and there. Mainly on trans tunnel for clearance, and on the pipes themselves. (Yep, I was in a hurry.)



Honestly just leave the air con in the car unless you are never ever going to drive it on a road again. I am in Townsville now, and I really regret abandoning mine during the engine swap. I regretted it driving from Perth to Sydney, and again from Sydney to Townsville. Just leave it there it's not hurting anyone, and one day you will have a mrs who will complain about the lack of air con, or you'll feel bad when you have to take your mum somewhere in your shitty non-air-conditioned primitive car, etc etc.

Leave well enough alone just get it regassed, run it occasionally, and accept that it's there if you ever need it.

[Krisp]

Sam if your missus whinges too much, it might be time to upgrade, from what i see her sister wants you. Make a trade, she has less km

[PUSHIN]

lol! fair enough then savage i understand now, i thought he was referring to something to do with the a/c, couldn't understand how the sledgehammer was needed to remove a/c, using it for clearance on the other hand is a slightly different story, however i dont think i could ever bring myself to do that (no offence intended or anything.) and i dunno as for leaving the a/c in, the car is more-so intended to be a show car, over the last two weeks i've started to become VERY against using it as a daily, i'm thinking as soon as i convert the engine from the current daily, to the new vn, i'll be purchasing either a little 4cyl buzz box to get me from a-b, or i might buy an import of some description, that spoken car, will ALWAYS have a/c, stereo, well, pretty much everything lol.. but i'm intending on making this more as a show car until i'm off my p's, then i'll be working at something like a 6L conversion.. but eh, i find my windows fairly effective, and as much as i hate the heat, on the hottest days we had over the last few weeks, my windows worked alright for me.. i understand what your saying, how it can be helpfull and whatnot.. but i dunno.. just dont see the point in having it, i'm honestly trying to convince myself to leave it, but considering i had the gas removed yesterday, and it will most likely piss me off anyway, i think that it'll end up coming out of the car over the next couple of days.. in which case, i'm thinking in the next two months, if not, in the next 15 odd months, i'll most likely regret it, worst case scenario, re-fit a/c!

[vn1989]

i think you should just leave it there and put the belt for no a/c on so its still there but not getting driven by anything so if you decide you like it later on you can get a normal belt and off you go

[F l a k]

Tl;dr, but why do you want to remove it? There's no point unless you're trying to save weight because I think you can just unplug it, right? Then you won't have the power loss but don't get the weight advantage of removing it, but you don't have to pull your car apart and the resale value is higher.

[PUSHIN]

.... i've already installed the shorter belt, PLUS had the gas removed, AND it's also unplugged, thank you for the inputs guys, but i'm ripping it out, Flak, half of it is for the weight reduction, i dont use it, its therefore dead weight right? i'm building another vn (with the engine, tranny, computers, from my current vn) from ground up in a couple of months (its sitting in the back yard, half ready, waiting for a bit of sanding and paint.) in which case, i'm given the option to build a car with average original parts (suspension, brakes, interior, etc etc) and keep give it all the calais options (as mine is a calais) or, i can spend $$$$ on 'performance' suspension, brakes, etc, and then i'd almost be stupid to put the dead weight into my car.. (in my opinion) gotta build it from ground up, so any weight i dont see necessary is coming out.

OH!! and i'm VERY sorry, and mean no offence, but i have to laugh at the last sentence. like, almost litterally but if i do i'll go insane. "dont have to pull your car apart" spent 9 hours doing so today. extractors are a pain in the ass hey, JUST the drivers side though everything else was sooooo smooth and easy, then i get to the drivers side, and spend 7 odd hours on it, and STILL haven't even bolted one peice of the pacey's on. -.-' And then for the "resale value is higher" LOLOLOLOLOLOL. that vn has had $14,000 put into it over the last 3 and a half years (that also includes the 1800 it cost me..) there ain't NOTHIN' to gain on resale for this car mate she'd of been lucky to pull 3,500 roadworthy registered before the little accident, now (because i cant bring myself to rip someone off) she aint worth $500. even before the accident, the total of the car got to 8k or so and i decided there was no "resale" the car was gonna be mine, i'd damn near say till i die. so of course, it gets damaged, i buy a new shell to fix it this baby ain't ever gettin sold mate, i've put too much work into the base car i started with, and in the last two months i've put too much work into the new one (full body kit, vz ss flutes in guards, vt seats, money saved for pearl purple paint which is getting done in 2-3 months, stato front end, etc etc) still got more to come, but again, this one ain't ever seeing a for sale sign. nooo way. too much pride in my futile baby.

Chrispy; I owe you an appology mate! you proved to be correct, and the wrecker whom i purchased my extractors from was wrong, the compressor wasnt even touched once in my process of installing the extractors (yet, only half way -.-)