What are you doing here with this "No A/C Ever, and I'm Proud of It" thing?!? Are you trying to win the world's most gnarly man contest?!?
Hardly. But, the fact is, I've learned to do without A/C both in my ride and home. We use evaporative cooling down here. I am looking for a reasonably priced automotive swamp cooler for Mathilda, as the additional current draw is well within the capacity of the 60A alternator. Tilly, like a good many other vehicles I've owned, lacks all her original driving compartment insulation save a little under the front bench and the dash. Using an AIR CONDITIONER in such an environment is absurdly inefficient, just as it is in the trailer I now inhabit or the old adobe flat and adobe-brick house I once started to buy. Swamp cooling is the way to go down here.
The fact is: using a compressor/evaporator air conditioner requires a fair bit of energy from your motor. Cooling a passenger compartment requires a good seal for that environment, AND a good heat sink to dump all the heat your evaporator is absorbing (so to speak). That sink normally is the radiator, with the condenser coils placed just in front to catch the heat and to cool the coils down as much as that radiator can. Regardless of size, the radiator will catch that heat, and if it is NOT optimally configured to do so, then your engine WILL pay dearly for your transient comfort. Even if it is well adapted to the purpose, as my original #2524984; a PRECIOUS AND RARE TYPE NOWADAYS, meant for High altitude, AC and automatic trannies, (
Mopar Radiator Guide & Specifications 1962 to 1974 ) is, your engine WILL do extra WORK, running that compressor, running the alternator harder, the fan and all, and very likely WILL experience some rise in temperature from that extra work. Given what a trifle the dubious comfort of riding in a closed glass cage in summer heat is, I've never considered it worth my nickel.
I likely will replace my radiator with one of the better made (U.S.A.) aluminum ones this spring. I can buy two of those for a re-core of the original. I know a good, reputable radiator shop for that, but I simply refuse to spend the high $ to restore an obsolete method when the newer one does the trick for less. I can save the original one for my engine cradle for the 400 I mean to build anyway. Its still plenty good for that. Ironically enough, I was looking into the merits of the 2797 as I notice that the 2707 doesn't spin the fan quite enough for my liking when I ran across your query. I'd show off my gator hunting pics if I wanted to do "gnarly"....
Besides, it messes with my in-laws' micro-cephalic yankee minds! Doubly that their daughter now sings My Gospel, in this and many other regards....
