Howdy fellas and fellettes,
I finally got the aftermarket AC installed in the 65 New Yorker last week, with the help of fellow forum member Dave Baro. Turns out Dave and I live just about 15 minutes from each other, and over the last couple of years we've become good friends.
The car already had a "knee knocker" AC system from Sears when I bought the car, but it was inoperable. Dave had a guy who was a crackerjack auto AC guy, and the plan was to have that guy get the old system running again with a new condenser, drier, and hoses. But the guy was flaky, so I decided to buy an aftermarket kit from a company here near Clearwater and install it myself.
I bought the kit from Coldmaster in Largo FL, not far from St. Pete. The complete kit was $650, which included about $50 in tax. It came with: evaporator, compressor, condenser, drier, hoses, fittings, wiring harness, various nuts and bolts, and a less-than-stellar instruction manual. The guy basically threw in the adapter bracket for the compressor.
Dave and I got the condenser mounted in a few hours on a Sunday, and I did the drier install the next day. The compressor was easy, I used Coldmaster's bracket which was a direct bolt-up to the old Mapes bracket that Sears had installed lo those many years ago. The evaporator was easy too...although the Coldmaster bracket would not work with the NYer, the old brackets off the Sears evaporator were an easy fit, and bolted directly into the old holes under the dash that the Sears unit occupied! Very fortuitous indeed. After all was plumbed and wired (the harness was clearly marked and easy to install), the system needed to be evacuated and charged. This is where Dave's buddy came in handy. I got him over to my shop and he had the thing blowing colder than Melania in no time. But that wasn't the end of the story...
Now the old radiator clearly was not up to the challenge of cooling the 413 through summer in Tampa. SO, I ordered a rad from Engineered Cooling Products in Chicago (shout out to my friend CBARGE for finding that for me). With a little tweaking I got the rad mounted and plumbed in a few hours (everything always takes longer, right?), and today was the first voyage with the new setup. So far so good, no overheating, and the AC is working very well.
Any constructive comment or questions are welcome. Internet troll DBs just move on.
I finally got the aftermarket AC installed in the 65 New Yorker last week, with the help of fellow forum member Dave Baro. Turns out Dave and I live just about 15 minutes from each other, and over the last couple of years we've become good friends.
The car already had a "knee knocker" AC system from Sears when I bought the car, but it was inoperable. Dave had a guy who was a crackerjack auto AC guy, and the plan was to have that guy get the old system running again with a new condenser, drier, and hoses. But the guy was flaky, so I decided to buy an aftermarket kit from a company here near Clearwater and install it myself.
I bought the kit from Coldmaster in Largo FL, not far from St. Pete. The complete kit was $650, which included about $50 in tax. It came with: evaporator, compressor, condenser, drier, hoses, fittings, wiring harness, various nuts and bolts, and a less-than-stellar instruction manual. The guy basically threw in the adapter bracket for the compressor.
Dave and I got the condenser mounted in a few hours on a Sunday, and I did the drier install the next day. The compressor was easy, I used Coldmaster's bracket which was a direct bolt-up to the old Mapes bracket that Sears had installed lo those many years ago. The evaporator was easy too...although the Coldmaster bracket would not work with the NYer, the old brackets off the Sears evaporator were an easy fit, and bolted directly into the old holes under the dash that the Sears unit occupied! Very fortuitous indeed. After all was plumbed and wired (the harness was clearly marked and easy to install), the system needed to be evacuated and charged. This is where Dave's buddy came in handy. I got him over to my shop and he had the thing blowing colder than Melania in no time. But that wasn't the end of the story...
Now the old radiator clearly was not up to the challenge of cooling the 413 through summer in Tampa. SO, I ordered a rad from Engineered Cooling Products in Chicago (shout out to my friend CBARGE for finding that for me). With a little tweaking I got the rad mounted and plumbed in a few hours (everything always takes longer, right?), and today was the first voyage with the new setup. So far so good, no overheating, and the AC is working very well.
Any constructive comment or questions are welcome. Internet troll DBs just move on.