Aircon upgrade for Chimaera

[notax]

Does anyone know how much it costs to retro fit A/C to a 1996 4.0 Chimaera? Would you advise having new parts fitted or trying to locate second hand?

Any thoughts appreciated.

[Guillotine]

sell yours and buy one with A/c!

seriously, it the best way!!

[dnb]

It's probably the same aircon compressor and rad parts as in the relevent year rangerover... No idea on the ducting and stuff.

As above, probably best to find a good Chim 500 with AC (extra power is to drive the AC )

[shadowninja]

i've heard having it retrofitted is about as useful as employing a guinea pig to sit in that inset triangle on the transmission tunnel and puffing at you to keep you cool.

amusing to watch tho

[shpub]

dnb said:

It's probably the same aircon compressor and rad parts as in the relevent year rangerover... No idea on the ducting and stuff.

Costs about £3000+ as the whole car interior has to come out etc etc. Can only be done on later cars (1996 might not qualify ) that have the air con ducting /boxes in place.

The pump is Rover based but that is it.

[redcar]

Unless you are going to pay very top money for the install as SH say's, it can be troublesome and untidy, I had it retro-fitted to a Merc and it was not good, I should have known better over 30 yrs experience in A/C trade should have told me not to have it retro-fitted, I will now get slaughtered by car AC trade.:

>> Edited by redcar on Thursday 19th August 08:40

[Nano2nd]

what extra parts are required then other than the pump and the heater box?

[shpub]

Nano2nd said:

what extra parts are required then other than the pump and the heater box?

Condenser, dryer, heat exchanger, wiring, control box and a whole lot of labour to remove all the interior, the heating and ventilation system out of the wings and install parts back into the wings.

Not easy or straightforward at all.

[chimburt]

what's involved in taking a system out/disabling it?
not bothered about carrying around a few spare bits, but never use it, so seems like a bit of a waste of time really.
can we jst remove the pump and replace with an idler, cap off the pipework etc?

[shpub]

You could but as there is a clutch on the pump, it won't save much. I would leave it alone.

[K4TRV]

If you depressurise the system, the pump won't be engaged and neither will the clutch come into play. Other than losses from the belt drive, should free up a v small amount of "bhp".

It'll cost you to have it depresssurised and filled. Depressurising costs as it'll have freon, I expect, one of them ozone depleting gases and should be done responsibly !!

Trev McM

[shpub]

If it switched off, the clutch isn't engaged either.

[redcar]

shpub said:

You could but as there is a clutch on the pump, it won't save much. I would leave it alone.

Fully agree with SH, however if you want it degassed it should only cost around £45.00 Ex Vat, but car A/C is a licence to print money for the places that do it, so please don't get ripped off, if they tell you the refrigerant has to be sent away to be destroyed, that depending on the refrigerant is crap, the age of your car it will have an ozone friendly refrigerant in it and it is just returned free of charge. But you might just as well leave it charged up as if you degas it you run the risk of the internals deteriating due to the nature of refrigerant (eating seals and compressor gland) and then when you come to sell it you will have a major problem.
Always best to run it every couple of weeks to keep internals good.
I can see me getting drummed out of the industry :

[tvrjohn]

I need a new pump or rebuild as bearings recently collapsed, any one help ?