pics request:custom made a/c lines

[ian332isport]

I'd be very interested in seeing your adapters. Please post some pics


Cheers'

John

Hi John,

Sorry for the delay :oops:

This is the best I can do. It's not an easy place to take photo's.

These sort of show the adaptors on the compressor. They are basically the ends cut off the E36 hoses (with a bit of the metal pipe left) with a standard A/C fitting silver soldered on the end. You bolt the adapters to the compressor, and can then screw a regular threaded A/C fitting to it. You can't really see it in the pictures, but there's a male thread coming off the adapter which the female nut of a standard fitting screws onto.




This is the other end of the flexi hose. Instead of having the hose crimped directly to the end of the metal line from the firewall, I cut the original and had another male fitting silver soldered on the end (and re-plated afterwards).




Cheers,

Ian.

[1991 318is]

One good thing about A/C.

If you don't have it in Texas, you'll have some real skanks riding around with you. An A/C specialty shop can make them up cheaper than you can buy OEM . All they need are the ends and length.

[jrez]

Thanks Ian,

A very nice solution, and one I'll definetly do next time.
I just could'nt go without A/C any longer. We're steady in the high 30's(in the shade) degrees Celsius here right now, and I was/am baking.
Zionsville's stuff showed up today, and except for the compressor outlet line being rusty internally, they look ok.

Are they worth 250 bones?.... did I mention its how hot it is here right now? :-?

Thanks again for the pics!

John

[trent]

On my swapper.

[KangamangusDriver]

I really need to keep AC when I build my next monster

[BDSax]

i know im going to.

[Drew325is]

Warning...bumped thread...:p

I just discovered something neat that might save a bit of money for people making their A/C lines...it seems common to frankenstien E30 and E36 hoses together...which for most people will mean buying a pair of E36 hoses to get the two different sized pad fittings for the compressor end of the E30 hoses. Well...it seems a single E36 318 hose (pn 64536902230) provides you with the two different sized pad fittings, one at each end of the hose (two for one so to speak!). The only hurdle will be silver soldering some beadlock hose fittings onto the pad fittings, due to the bends in the 318 pipe (would be nice to have a longer run of straight pipe to solder to. I'll let you know how it goes. The hose:

[hoveringuy]

Trent has really good pictures. I'm in the process of doing mine now. I ordered 3 barb fittings, some hose and ferruls from ackits.com. I thought I could just braze some new fittings on the e36 compressor lines and crimp the e30 hose over it but the hose sizes were different between the e30 and the e36. The e36 used one size larger hose for suction and discharge. So I had to braze new barb fittings and also replace some hose but that wasn't a big deal.

I also had to bend the e36 fittings quite a bit.

I didn't know you could adapt the e36 manifold to male threads. That's cool.

[Mr.SWISS]

ha goodluck. the only one i know of that has AC around here with his 24v is permit.

Gotz A/C here. Shit is mandatory.

[loonibab325i]

If you don't have it in Texas, you'll have some real skanks riding around with you. An A/C specialty shop can make them up cheaper than you can buy OEM . All they need are the ends and length.

That's the plan.

Haha.

-Abe.