Mexi Air Conditioner upgrade update.

Some of you may recall my repeated problems surrounding the Air conditioner in my 2004 Mexican Ultime Edicion Beetle.  The condenser unit is mounted in a plastic housing behind the back seat and draws it's air from the louvers under the rear window. It worked OK but every long trip would present a new failure. Blown shaft seal, severe heat warped condenser housing, high oil temps etc. On a trip from Chicago to Effingham in June the condenser itself blew up and the freon excaping from a small hole super cooled and shattered the hot condenser housing.
After Antonio Trejo was able to find me a new housing I started thinking about the overall design and after speaking with Tom Brunson I ordered a new dual condenser system from Gilmore Enterprises (www.gilmore-enterprises.net).

The old system operates in competition with the engine's coolong fan and at 70mph the condenser's fan couldn't compete with the engines and the system pressures would go sky high. Gilmore supplied me a with nice dual condenser system that uses two modern radiator type fans and mounts to the lower torsion housing under the car, well out of the way with two hoses that run through my exsisting holes and the whole set up was 100% bolt in no modifications to anything. The system takes less freon, works at much lower system pressure, I don't notice the compressor kicking in and it is positively colder than you can stand inside the car even with the 134a freon. No stalling at idle with the A/C on either due to lower system pressures and less drag on the compressor.

I removed the original condenser and blower unit and simply ran the new hoses through the old condenser housing, blocking off and insulating the air intake and exhaust from the inside.

This past weekend it passed the acid test and 75 miles at 70 mph with the A/C on it was blowing 34 degrees out the vents at 96 degree ambient temperature with normal oil temps and a dipstick you could pull out w/o burning yourself.  After 10 minutes on the interstate we had it 40 degrees inside the car and had to put the A/C on the warmest setting to keep from freezing !

Last edited by DrDarby (2005-09-12 07:54:08)