Air Conditioning (AC) Removal

[Soul Shinobi]

I was astounded that I could hardly find anything on AC removal after searching for a whole hour.

I've just removed 29 pounds of AC system from my engine bay since it's R-12 and I don't care to convert. A little extra fuel economy and performance is nice too.

I've removed all the mechanical stuff under the hood, and haven't touched the evaporator core or anything else inside, or electrical.

I don't plan on touching the evaporator core (unless you think it's easy), but I wanted to know what else I can remove. I'm particularly interested in what fuses and relays I can remove without interrupting anything else (I don't want to, for example, accidentally disable the radiator fans altogether). Will removing the two AC fuses and four AC relays in the engine compartment fuse box has any adverse effects?

[entirelyturbo]

I'm not trying to be a jerk, but anyone can take stuff out. So there really isn't much of a writeup necessary.

Did you remove the condenser? Drier? All the lines?

[Soul Shinobi]

Yeah, most of it was easy, and I only broke one bolt on my rusty 267,xxx mile car, but I had no idea how to take the condenser out. I did figure it out, eventually (remove grill, two bolts, removed driver's side line, pull up, remove passenger side line, pull out). Thankfully it can be done without removing the radiator.

Everything up to the evaporator (both sides of the system) is out, but how easy is the evaporator core? And can I remove the 4 relays and 2 fuses so there's no power rerouting when I put the defroster on?

[Legacy777]

The evap core can be removed pretty easily. There's one or two bolts holding the evap core box in. The core can then be remoeved, and the box cleaned. The only thing you need to do is seal the holes on the box so air doesn't escape, and you need to cover the holes in the fire wall. There's really no harm in leaving the evap core in. If it were me, I'd probably remove the core and clean the box as it gets very nasty over the years.

I'd have to look at a wiring diagram for the AC relays/fuses. You need to leave the sub fan relays alone. I'm not sure if there is an A/C fuse per-say.

[RJ93SS]

i'm interested too, pulled all mine out up to the firewall, nothing inside yet though

[Soul Shinobi]

Alright, I broke out the wiring diagrams here.

...

And 45 minutes later, it seems that ... Hold on. Okay, another half hour later... Jesus Christ this shit's complicated. I mean, I can read a wiring diagram, but this is tough. We've got 4 relays, two of which seem directly related to the fans but the relays and two fuses are so intermingled it's anyone's guess. Everything is cross linked a lot. There's also a main fan relay that I can't find on any diagrams.

I guess I'll have to setup something to trick out the temperature sensor to force the fans on for engine temp and see if the fans go on with difference combinations of relays and fuses in place.

15 minutes more of looking at this and I've got a bit of an idea of how this works. It seems the fuses be necessary for the sub fan, and maybe the main fan. It's confusing because the fans are three wire/dual speed.

I guess I'm going to have to just plug and play with the coolant temp sensor. Looking at these specifications, the temp sensor's resistance goes down as temperature increases so I should just be about to bridge it.

I'll have to do it tomorrow, I've got homework now.

[Legacy777]

Honestly, I'd highly recommend you DO NOT mess with the AC fuses & relays. They're not hurting anything, and you're not going to lose any substantial amount of weight from it. Plus, jeapordizing the fans not working properly really isn't something you want to do.

I went through the diagrams a little while back in trying to figure out the control logic, and it is far from easy to decipher. There's a lot of manual logic used instead of how it would be done today inside of an ECU.

[94SS_Canada]

Dude just remove the AC stuff in the engine bay thats the only stuff thats making any differance. Everything else can just stay put.

[Soul Shinobi]

Removing the fuses and relays will prevent power draw when the system is set to defog, defog/heat, etc. I like to prevent wasting power for the sake of fuel economy/alternator stress/battery stress.

I jumped the coolant temp sensor and it seems to work fine without any of the AC relays or fuses. The elusive Main Fan Relay must override everything else. Mission accomplished.

[RJ93SS]

nice work

[Soul Shinobi]

The evap core can be removed pretty easily. There's one or two bolts holding the evap core box in. The core can then be remoeved, and the box cleaned. The only thing you need to do is seal the holes on the box so air doesn't escape, and you need to cover the holes in the fire wall. There's really no harm in leaving the evap core in. If it were me, I'd probably remove the core and clean the box as it gets very nasty over the years.

Good advice:

[smh0101]

Um... are those bird feathers??? lol

[Soul Shinobi]

Yes. Bird feathers, twigs, and rat poop.

[green91]

They are very easy to convert, just keep the a/c. I used a general r134a conversion kit from autozone and charged the system on my 93ss at work, blows nice and cold for about $20 parts.

[Soul Shinobi]

Actually, I'm going to do a full proper conversion in my heating and AC class just this week! I'll be doing the labor, what little of it there is, and parts will total to around $60 since my school gets parts discounted for educational purposes.

[James614]

I pulled the 4 AC relays and the AC fuse on my Touring Wagon months ago. I've had no ill effects, radiator fans still worked fine the whole time. I didn't remove my AC though. Its just plain stupid to run the compressor while trying to deice/defog in the winter, all it does is prevent max heat and wastes gas. Gonna reinstall them in April, just in time to start keeping things cool (and battling humidity).

[Skruyd]

I pulled the 4 AC relays and the AC fuse on my Touring Wagon months ago. I've had no ill effects, radiator fans still worked fine the whole time. I didn't remove my AC though. Its just plain stupid to run the compressor while trying to deice/defog in the winter, all it does is prevent max heat and wastes gas. Gonna reinstall them in April, just in time to start keeping things cool (and battling humidity).

Actually the reason why the compressor runs during defrost is so the AC system doesn't dry out. There is oil in the AC system which helps keeps parts like the compressor lubricated and from rusting from trapped moister. If you don't let the compressor run some time during winter to help circulate the oil, it will die out earlier.

[James614]

I'm pretty sure the reason it runs on defog is because when the window fogs from humidity, just blowing outside air on it does nothing or makes it worse, so the AC is used to dry the air so it can actually remove the condensation (warm, rainy days come to mind the most).

I've seen AC systems dry out and sieze from years of non-use, but never from 1 season.

That said, I've been waiting until my system dies before I yank it all out anyways!