The Stovebolt Site Forums The Shop Area The HiPo Shop Adding AC to your ride!

If anyone is looking to add air conditioning to their truck I did a pretty decent write up on the cheap/easy way to do it in my project journal here... My journal
My compressor setup applied to my 5.3 but that setup is easily adapted to any engine combo including stock. Its getting to be that time of year and I ran it 2 days so far and im 1000000% happy I did it. Very nice enjoyable ride. Some people might frown on AC but it is 2020 and we have the means to slap AC into anything now so why not?

Since we are in Texas EVERYTHING gets a/c. When regular installs got routine we started to experiment and come up with something that looks good and works great. On some cars/trucks we put the under dash a/c up into the dash. Nice thing is one gets instant cooling without having to wait for duct work to cool down. This usually must be done at a build start since a bit of metal surgery is needed. The one AD we did was NOT that great with the cold air coming out of the radio grill. Fogged up metal grill and dripped water plus had to jury rig deflectors for driver and passenger to be in air flow. Person in middle got frost bite. Pics of 1939 Ford and 1930 Plymouth with in dash under dash a/c units.

[img]https://i.postimg.cc/30D0XgvQ/Mike-s-39-006.jpg[/img]

[img]https://i.postimg.cc/D86nCSd9/56-and-Model-A-002.jpg[/img]

Im very happy with mine so far. Im just getting to sealing up all the holes in the firewall. The steering shaft hole is wide open (moved over for v8) the brake pedal hole and new hole (moved over for v8) is wide open inches from the exhaust manifold. There are probably 10 open holes all together plus the heater core is still flowing and that underdash unit is still pumping out cold air. Im sure once i seal it up and put the floor insulation and mat in the cab it will be way better. Not to mention the roof with no insulation or headliner. Its just a pice of hot tin over your head. Im guessing once I improve all those things its going to just keep getting better and better.

The only time we drive these trucks in Iowa is during the summer. It ain't no fun cruising around when the temperature and the percent of humidity are the same number!

Yea this is going to extend my drive time pretty much all the way until we get snow. The heat works great too. Only time i dont drive it is on wet roads or if its salty. My wife will be muchhhhhh happier with it too this year. Probably be cold now.