Outer Limits 4x4 Board

I'm in the process of helping my old man build a F100 wagon. Its an ex ambo with a pop top (77 model) and we're trying to work out the best course of action for getting a decent aircon system in it. He wants to try and get the whole back area cooler because he uses it to move dogs (he's a dog breeder)

My main questions are
Has anyone on here taken aircon from one model and fitted it to something else? Would you do it again?

Does anyone know any makes which have big aircon systems in them that are likely to be cheap? We were thinking a tarago or something like that, but obviously it'll be cheaper if we can find something that is likely to be being parted out to avoid wreckers.

Not sure if a tarago would have a particularily large system, but one option would be to look at a fridge set up from a refridge van, they run a comp from the engine and usually a slim fan and heat exchanger set up on the roof, wouldn't be hard to set up and probably find the gear second handfairly cheap, I know ferog was wanting to lose one a while ago, depending on location a viesa evaporator unit might do te trick, second hand from a truck wreckers? Needs to be dry heat to do anything, no good in qld

With that amount of space you might want to look at a unit from something like a hiace/transit bus. I think a generic roof mounted unit would be the easiest way to go about it, but certainly there's no reason a unit from another car won't work, just that there will be a fair amount of fabrication involved in mounting and wiring just about everything.

The old man lives in northern NSW so it can't be an evaporative setup. How big are the roof top refigeration setups? Don't they normally have a big fan setup that stays inside van? I'm not sure on my chances of getting him to agree on something that will stick up out of the roof unless we can make it look decent. The van as it sits now looks like this, I guess we could cut into the fibre glass bubble over the cab and mount one in there.



Tarago's were just an idea because they're big and have alot of glass, so I figured they would have a decent system. But I'm the first to admit I know next to nothing about aircon.

You can look at the stand alone systems they use in old classics and hot rods and just fit it in the back and turn it on when you need to. We used to have the in the back of our iveco vans at work due to the standard aircon wouldnt cool past the front seats and the passengers in the rear just roasted in the heat.

Mark.

I've seen good results just running a larger evap and condenser!

I've heard that stand alone A/C units (like in trucks etc) are actually more efficient then engine-driven compressor mounted units. Is that right?

TheOtherLeft wrote:I've heard that stand alone A/C units (like in trucks etc) are actually more efficient then engine-driven compressor mounted units. Is that right?

what like icepak's? Sleeper A/C systems are fawkin expensive, most trucks standard A/Cs are average at best although they ate normally engine driven comps like cars and big cabs with big engines under them creating lots of heat

I'm thinking most effective options will be expensive

Even try talking to a caravan specialist. They may know how to set something up within a budget.

TheOtherLeft wrote:I've heard that stand alone A/C units (like in trucks etc) are actually more efficient then engine-driven compressor mounted units. Is that right?

Could be. I don't know for sure, but I imagine for optimum efficiency the compressor needs to run at an optimum speed. An engine driven compressor will vary speed with engine speed, where a standalone unit can be made to run at one particular speed.

Having said that, modern household airconditioners use a variable speed compressor, and ramp speed up and down to control cooling output, rather than switch on and off. This is supposed to improve efficiency, so perhaps my first bit is wrong?

Well the latest plan now involves buying a written of AU falcon as he wants to do a full speedo and steering coloumn and possibly even a dash conversion. So we're going to have a shot at using the aircon system out of that, and if that doesn't have enough balls we'll look at other options for trying to cool the rest of the back down.

I have done it, it is not particularly hard, especially if you have plenty of space under the dash to work with, which you should have with a big car like that.

Be prepared for a bit of head scratching with the AU controls though.

I would be inclined to split the cabin up into two zones and have separate A/C's for each if it is to be used for carrying dogs. In fact I do remember something about NOT being able to carry animals inside vehicles that are not contained in a physical restraint if contained in the passenger cabin.

The commodore series, VR/VS, of stretched utes that were used by ambo's had a separate unit under the rear floor that simply tapped into the original holden aircon pipes under the bonnet and ran lines to the rear allowing it to be controlled independantly. I think i still have the rear aircon setup from one i stripped under the house, but freight might be a bit? if you were after something like that. I hung onto it for something similar to what you're doing but haven't needed it yet.