Originally Posted by
manic
Then I had an idea for a cheaper 'out of sight' option..
The other day I took off the heater unit from the bulkhead because the matrix/core was leaking. I bypassed the heater and now have the whole unit on my garage floor. Got me thinking.. could you not just put an evaporator matrix in place of the heater matrix!? Sure you would loose your heating but Id much rather drive with a jacket when it gets cold than drive in a rage, sweating and dizzy when its a 30C+ day!!
In my mind it shouldnt be difficult to hook the compressor, condenser, receiver/drier etc under the bonnet so that it passes the refrigerant through an evaporator housed in your existing blower unit.
You would then use your existing blower controls on dash to control fan speed and mix outside air with cooled air (warmer/colder) . You would only need to add a switch to the dash to turn the compressor on/off
The air would come out of the standard holes, unfortunately that means cold front window and toes. You could modify the vents that are directed to your feet so that they blow upwards or maybe even find some directional vents that can be made to work.
If this is cheap/easy to do then the drawbacks are:
- no heater
- external air only - no recirc - not filtered
- land rover blower not the most powerful!
- box limits evaporator size, I'm no expert but could be too small to get properly cold output?