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daveark
Samba Member
Joined: August 08, 2010
Posts: 74
Location: Dallas/Fort Worth
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 Posted: Thu Aug 24, 2017 1:06 pm Post subject: Re: adding A/C to a subaru conversion |
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The expression in the rear view never fails to amuse when knuckleheads pull rudely out from a side street and watch as the bus gains on them while they accelerate.
Getting out of the sun and into the bus so I can cool off has become a normal-abnormality. |
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markd89
Samba Member
Joined: November 04, 2005
Posts: 657
Location: Los Angeles
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| Posted: Wed Sep 06, 2017 1:25 pm Post subject: Re: adding A/C to a subaru conversion |
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| 69BahamaYellow wrote: |
| markd89 wrote: |
| Is there a rule of thumb to know how many square inches of condenser should be needed? Is there a benefit to having more smaller condensers vs. fewer larger ones. |
According to VintageAir.com, Condenser should be 1.25X capacity of Evaporator in cubic inches. And parallel flow has 25% more capacity than tube & fin for the same size.
For parallel flow condensers, mount the outlet pipe lower than the inlet pipe so gravity will help get the oil out. In tube and fin types, you can mount condensers completely flat, since there's only 1 path for the refrigerant and oil. |
After a year, I am finally going to get moving on this project. I'm thinking to mount the condenser under the bus on the right side between the side of the bus and the frame rail.
The dimensions are 14" wide, 46" long. ff I stay under 8" height, I won't lose any ground clearance.
I'm thinking to do two tube and fin condensers in series with fans on bottom pushing air up.
Thoughts?
With two tube and fin condensers mounted flat, do I have to engineer anything special to avoid the oil getting stuck somewhere?
Thanks!
Mark
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78 TDI Sunroof Bus
Los Angeles |
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skills@eurocarsplus
Samba Peckerhead
Joined: January 01, 2007
Posts: 16863
Location: sticksville, ct.
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| Posted: Wed Sep 06, 2017 4:55 pm Post subject: Re: adding A/C to a subaru conversion |
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I wouldn't
_________________
| gprudenciop wrote: |
my reason for switching to subaru is my german car was turning chinese so i said fuck it and went japanese....... |
| Jake Raby wrote: |
| Thanks for the correction. I used to be a nice guy, then I ruined it by exposing myself to the public. |
| Brian wrote: |
| Also the fact that people are agreeing with Skills, it's a turn of events for samba history |
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69BahamaYellow
Samba Member
Joined: April 22, 2011
Posts: 536
Location: Talbott, TN
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| Posted: Thu Sep 07, 2017 8:53 am Post subject: Re: adding A/C to a subaru conversion |
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| markd89 wrote: |
I'm thinking to do two tube and fin condensers in series with fans on bottom pushing air up.
Thoughts?
With two tube and fin condensers mounted flat, do I have to engineer anything special to avoid the oil getting stuck somewhere? |
No worries with oil pooling using tube/fin condensers in series, but you may be disappointed with heat removal performance. Parallel flow condensers remove more heat and keep high side system pressure lower (compared to tube/fin). Just mount the outlet slightly lower than the inlet and gravity will get the oil out. Here's how I mounted mine. You can see the angle of my condenser 2, but condenser 1 is at the same angle; it's just mounted higher, so you cant tell.
Not sure what the air flow will do, when mounting condensers outside the frame rail, but it could change in unexpected ways when you add obstructions.....
Regarding condenser fans, pushers tend to put the air flow only where the fan is, while pullers (with a shroud) spread the air flow more evenly across the whole condenser for more heat removal.
Good Luck. |
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markd89
Samba Member
Joined: November 04, 2005
Posts: 657
Location: Los Angeles
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| Posted: Thu Sep 07, 2017 1:56 pm Post subject: Re: adding A/C to a subaru conversion |
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| 69BahamaYellow wrote: |
| markd89 wrote: |
I'm thinking to do two tube and fin condensers in series with fans on bottom pushing air up.
Thoughts?
With two tube and fin condensers mounted flat, do I have to engineer anything special to avoid the oil getting stuck somewhere? |
No worries with oil pooling using tube/fin condensers in series, but you may be disappointed with heat removal performance. Parallel flow condensers remove more heat and keep high side system pressure lower (compared to tube/fin). Just mount the outlet slightly lower than the inlet and gravity will get the oil out. Here's how I mounted mine. You can see the angle of my condenser 2, but condenser 1 is at the same angle; it's just mounted higher, so you cant tell.
Not sure what the air flow will do, when mounting condensers outside the frame rail, but it could change in unexpected ways when you add obstructions.....
Regarding condenser fans, pushers tend to put the air flow only where the fan is, while pullers (with a shroud) spread the air flow more evenly across the whole condenser for more heat removal.
Good Luck. |
Thanks, 69BahamaYellow! That's super-helpful!
So, each condenser is tilted so that the outlet is "downhill" and I'd figure each radiator is slightly below the previous radiator so that nothing is stuck in the tubes between radiators?
You're using puller fans pulling the air down. That's fighting against the "hot air rises" factor, but I can see the tradeoff in the bottom of the condensers being protected from rocks. That said, I have had my cooling radiators exposed to road debris and knock-on-wood, no holes in 50K miles.
I'll do more measuring and post back to the thread on what I'm thinking. I'm hoping to build the setup so that it can get the whole bus decently cool, however, I'm also looking at (removable) ways to block the air from behind the front seats.
Thanks again for your help and am all ears on more ideas 
Mark
_________________
78 TDI Sunroof Bus
Los Angeles |
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notchboy
Samba Member
Joined: April 27, 2002
Posts: 22450
Location: Escondido CA
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| Posted: Thu Sep 07, 2017 2:44 pm Post subject: Re: adding A/C to a subaru conversion |
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Since you are all Subied up why keep the central heat tube between those condensers?
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| t3kg wrote: |
OK, this thread is over. You win. |
Jason "notchboy" Weigel
1964 1500 S
1964 T34 S Convertible
1977 Westfalia Camper pop-top |
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danfromsyr
Samba Member
Joined: March 01, 2004
Posts: 15144
Location: Syracuse, NY
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| Posted: Thu Sep 07, 2017 3:13 pm Post subject: Re: adding A/C to a subaru conversion |
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hot air doesn't rise with nearly the force of a good fan sucking air.
the heat rising is great for passive systems, but how fast does it create a draft at your house radiator? not fast or powerful at all.
now imagine the fan is a garden hose and blows onto the condensor. only the circle will be 'wet' from flow/contact.
consider the fan a vacuum drain.. and it'll draw in from anywhere it can.
_________________
| Abscate wrote: |
| These are the reasons we have words like “wanker” |
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markd89
Samba Member
Joined: November 04, 2005
Posts: 657
Location: Los Angeles
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| Posted: Thu Sep 07, 2017 5:33 pm Post subject: Re: adding A/C to a subaru conversion |
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| danfromsyr wrote: |
hot air doesn't rise with nearly the force of a good fan sucking air.
the heat rising is great for passive systems, but how fast does it create a draft at your house radiator? not fast or powerful at all.
now imagine the fan is a garden hose and blows onto the condensor. only the circle will be 'wet' from flow/contact.
consider the fan a vacuum drain.. and it'll draw in from anywhere it can. |
Good stuff. Thanks for the explanation!
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78 TDI Sunroof Bus
Los Angeles |
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69BahamaYellow
Samba Member
Joined: April 22, 2011
Posts: 536
Location: Talbott, TN
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| Posted: Thu Sep 07, 2017 8:19 pm Post subject: Re: adding A/C to a subaru conversion |
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| markd89 wrote: |
So, each condenser is tilted so that the outlet is "downhill" and I'd figure each radiator is slightly below the previous radiator so that nothing is stuck in the tubes between radiators?
You're using puller fans pulling the air down. That's fighting against the "hot air rises" factor, but I can see the tradeoff in the bottom of the condensers being protected from rocks. That said, I have had my cooling radiators exposed to road debris and knock-on-wood, no holes in 50K miles. |
Parallel flow condensers (connected in series) don't need to be mounted with the first higher than the last. The single outlet of each condenser has enough flow to push condensed oil and refrigerant up hill. My second condenser was mounted lower than the first to accommodate the steel handbrake cable tube on that side.
Keeping your condensers out of harms way is a concern; especially if you mount them outside the frame rails, where the front tires could kick up rocks on them. when the bus is moving, the air naturally flows from the outside, over the top of the frame rails and down (others have discovered this), so that's why I put my puller fans on the bottom, but the extra protection from the aluminum shrouds I fabricated and the fans being on bottom is reassuring. The puller fans I used are only about $10 each, so if I bust one on a rock, they are A) Accessible, B)Available, and C) Cheap. My condensers were about $100 each, but time and materials to replace, evacuate, and recharge the system will cost much more, so protect those things.
If you look at how I mounted my front condenser, it has no fan, so the airflow is from bottom to top when the bus is stationary (hot air rising). When you're moving, the air flowing under the bus naturally creates low pressure, which vacuums the air out the trailing edge of the shroud I fabricated for that condenser, through the 4 slots (air flows from top to bottom of condenser). I can tell you from experience that Danfromsyr is right; the cooling effect from hot air rising is negligible compared with what you get from fans or vehicle in motion.
From the front, you can see my condenser #3 is at an angle, with an even steeper angle at the trailing edge. This forces the airflow down to create an even larger low pressure zone for condenser 1 and 2. In theory, the steeper angle lip at the trailing edge of my condenser 3 shroud should help transition airflow under the bus from laminar to turbulent to further aid cooling flow from the bottom of condensers 1&2. I don't know if that's reality here, but after a drive with my AC on full blast in TX heat, the outlet pipe temperature of my condenser #3 is only a few degrees above ambient, so that tells me the combination of my 3 condensers does an incredibly good job.
If you could successfully mount condensers outside the frame rails on the bottom sides of the bus, and get them to work, that opens up a lot more options for folks with gas heaters or water cooled engines. After reading SKills' Delux build thread, he tried damn near every radiator mounting there is on the bottom of a bus for his Suby swap, and the only thing that really worked was mounting inside the frame rails. The best position to mount radiators / condensers is right on the nose of the bus (like the Brazilians did with their water cooled type 2's), but that just spoils the whole look of the air cooled... just my $.02 |
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Abscate
Samba Member
Joined: October 05, 2014
Posts: 22648
Location: NYC/Upstate/ROW
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| Posted: Fri Sep 08, 2017 2:11 am Post subject: Re: adding A/C to a subaru conversion |
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It's a turbulent fan fest under a Bus , with HAMILTON Joe Fronde andReynolds playing the music....
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.ssS! |
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skills@eurocarsplus
Samba Peckerhead
Joined: January 01, 2007
Posts: 16863
Location: sticksville, ct.
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| Posted: Fri Sep 08, 2017 4:49 am Post subject: Re: adding A/C to a subaru conversion |
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| Abscate wrote: |
| It's a turbulent fan fest under a Bus , with HAMILTON Joe Fronde andReynolds playing the music.... |
In my testing that isn't really true. The center of the bus is very stable. outside the frame rails....not so much
_________________
| gprudenciop wrote: |
my reason for switching to subaru is my german car was turning chinese so i said fuck it and went japanese....... |
| Jake Raby wrote: |
| Thanks for the correction. I used to be a nice guy, then I ruined it by exposing myself to the public. |
| Brian wrote: |
| Also the fact that people are agreeing with Skills, it's a turn of events for samba history |
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markd89
Samba Member
Joined: November 04, 2005
Posts: 657
Location: Los Angeles
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| Posted: Sun Sep 10, 2017 1:47 pm Post subject: Re: adding A/C to a subaru conversion |
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[quote="69BahamaYellow"]
| markd89 wrote: |
| If you could successfully mount condensers outside the frame rails on the bottom sides of the bus, and get them to work, that opens up a lot more options for folks with gas heaters or water cooled engines. After reading SKills' Delux build thread, he tried damn near every radiator mounting there is on the bottom of a bus for his Suby swap, and the only thing that really worked was mounting inside the frame rails. The best position to mount radiators / condensers is right on the nose of the bus (like the Brazilians did with their water cooled type 2's), but that just spoils the whole look of the air cooled... just my $.02 |
Showing my ignorance: If we're relying on the fans to draw the air through the radiators, don't questions of turbulence or air pressure in the mounting location matter much less?
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78 TDI Sunroof Bus
Los Angeles |
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skills@eurocarsplus
Samba Peckerhead
Joined: January 01, 2007
Posts: 16863
Location: sticksville, ct.
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| Posted: Sun Sep 10, 2017 3:23 pm Post subject: Re: adding A/C to a subaru conversion |
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| markd89 wrote: |
| don't questions of turbulence or air pressure in the mounting location matter much less? |
too bad photobucket killed my deluxe thread, because I made a manometer to prove a high pressure area under the bus.
airflow is crucial to keeping the engine cool. same holds true with a condenser. inadequate airflow will result in elevated high side pressure. duplicating the DPD/ cooool aftermarket (or was it cccool?) mounting was the way to go.
I had the extra ass ache of trying to keep a water cooled bus cool in Texas, WITH A/C. after speaking to Daveark recently he has not had any issue at all running around in texas with a Subaru bus....with the A/C on
so, to answer yer question....it's important to have proper airflow. with todays fan technology it's a pretty easy task.
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| gprudenciop wrote: |
my reason for switching to subaru is my german car was turning chinese so i said fuck it and went japanese....... |
| Jake Raby wrote: |
| Thanks for the correction. I used to be a nice guy, then I ruined it by exposing myself to the public. |
| Brian wrote: |
| Also the fact that people are agreeing with Skills, it's a turn of events for samba history |
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Jelleb
Samba Member
Joined: August 06, 2018
Posts: 3
Location: Belgium
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| Posted: Mon Aug 06, 2018 9:49 am Post subject: Re: adding A/C to a subaru conversion |
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Which condenser/fan did you use?
A friend of mine of converting my VW T2b into a EJ 20 and i'm looking for an AC-system (since global warming has struck Belgium aswell..),
thanks for the helpfull tread! |
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skills@eurocarsplus
Samba Peckerhead
Joined: January 01, 2007
Posts: 16863
Location: sticksville, ct.
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| Posted: Mon Aug 06, 2018 10:30 am Post subject: Re: adding A/C to a subaru conversion |
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I used what was supplied in the kit. Its all on the first page
_________________
| gprudenciop wrote: |
my reason for switching to subaru is my german car was turning chinese so i said fuck it and went japanese....... |
| Jake Raby wrote: |
| Thanks for the correction. I used to be a nice guy, then I ruined it by exposing myself to the public. |
| Brian wrote: |
| Also the fact that people are agreeing with Skills, it's a turn of events for samba history |
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RoadHazard
Samba Member
Joined: May 05, 2019
Posts: 13
Location: Sebring, Florida, USA
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| Posted: Thu May 16, 2019 7:52 pm Post subject: Re: adding A/C to a subaru conversion |
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It's May, and warming-up. 
| livelarg wrote: |
| This is just the thread I have been looking for! But none of the photos are working! I need to see this!!! lol Thanks Kent |
I searched for any thread (using "manometer"), but couldn't tease-out any suitable results.
Years ago, a yard sale offered a sphygmomanometer (liquid mercury manometer) for $8, so I picked it up. I hadn't thought to use it with my present '71 Westy, but I still have it. 
| markd89 wrote: |
| skills@eurocarsplus wrote: |
66*....and no humidity. i can only imagine how much more comfortable it will be with a full interior. |
Awesome results!!
It makes me think AC would be worthwhile in my TDI Bus. I had kind of figured with the huge interior space that no amount of AC would keep it cool but you've proven that wouldn't be the case. |
There was a "blow-forward" A/C in my brand-new 1984 Vanagon Westy.  No, wait, it had 500 miles on it, and it was heavily discounted—being "2nd-hand". The previous owner had planned a vacation in it, and only got halfway through Florida, and opted for something else.  That change of mind cost him many thousand$.
Anyway, expecting to be cooled-off sometime during my 60-MPH mostly-highway commute—after 15 miles of "cooling", it was finally comfortable when I pulled into my driveway. 
Now I remember what I was going to add. 
The '71 camper I saw in New Hampshire last summer had A/C, but the unit directed cold air up from behind (and below) the front kick-panel. (Or whatever you call it). I didn't get the owner's name, but he may be a Rhode Island member of this forum.
Anyone going to take credit for that installation? 
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VW/Porsche History:
1960 Karmann-Ghia, 1962 Beetle, 1970 Porsche 914/6, 1971 Porsche 914/6, 1962 Porsche 356B,
1965 Porsche 356C, 1982 Vanagon Westphalia—Diesel, 1984 Vanagon Westphalia, 1971 VW Westphalia—green, 1971 VW Westphalia—white |
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skills@eurocarsplus
Samba Peckerhead
Joined: January 01, 2007
Posts: 16863
Location: sticksville, ct.
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| Posted: Fri May 17, 2019 7:28 am Post subject: Re: adding A/C to a subaru conversion |
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| RoadHazard wrote: |
Anyone going to take credit for that installation? |
if it's the same guy I am thinking about...the credit can go to whoever finished the bus.
at the end of the day I should have declined doing that swap. it was so far off my tried and true method it was only bound to cause turmoil between all parties involved. but...it is what it is. lesson learned.
I saw the shop in RI that finished off the swap post to another forum. I got it to the point of running and was trying to sort cooling issues due to the HVAC box that was used in that conversion.
I was sending emails etc at 1-2am....I was committed to working out the bugs...in the end I got it as good as I could. this was the only swap that cost me more time and money than I could have imagined. lesson learned.
from that point forward, every swap I have done has been my way or kick rocks....I have a tried and true method, a bus that lives in Dallas with heat and a/c that doesn't run hot at all.
I am all about working with people and their ideas, but when their ideas are bigger than their check book....I can no longer work for free. sometimes R+D is needed when any deviations are made. I am no longer eating the time, labor or expense with any of it. I will always do my best to work with people, but in the end I have a business to run and a family to feed.
a classic example of this was Ride-On's 5 speed install. it took about 8-9 hours to iron out all the kinks and fab the brackets for the clutch slave. and...it's not some janky ass mount under the frame rail that so many do because it's easy...mine is tucked up where a rock won't take it out.
to this day, I still feel bad about how that deal went down. so much so, I actually told Daveark to find someone else to do his conversion as I just didn't want to get involved with anyone's swap ever again. he twisted my arm and here I am...10 swaps later with one happening right now.
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| gprudenciop wrote: |
my reason for switching to subaru is my german car was turning chinese so i said fuck it and went japanese....... |
| Jake Raby wrote: |
| Thanks for the correction. I used to be a nice guy, then I ruined it by exposing myself to the public. |
| Brian wrote: |
| Also the fact that people are agreeing with Skills, it's a turn of events for samba history |
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