Best car mod ever: AC

[Midnight Son]

http://media.myfoxhouston.com/news/2007-08-08/coolcar/carac1.jpg

http://www.myfoxhouston.com/myfox/pages/Home/Detail;jsessionid=D44D318830CD9C97BC523F55FBDFEEE9 ?contentId=4012848&version=3&locale=EN-US&layoutCode=PSTY&pageId=1.1.1&sflg=1


HOUSTON -- Scott Dawson, a civil engineering graduate from the University of Houston, decided after three years of driving around Houston without air conditioning in his car was long enough. So instead of spending $1,200 to fix the air conditioning on a car he planned on getting rid of soon, he bolted a home window A/C unit to the roof and wired it to the car.

Sweet! I mean kewl.

[zabuni]

It looks awful, but given the choice between that and being in Houston with no AC, I'll take that.

[Case]

I wouldn't want to be behind him on the freeway at 70MPH...

[Menzo]

Yeah, clearly not a law student. One minor fender bender and that thing becomes a projectile. Definitely not street legal, for good reason.

[CounterMeasure]

That's the problem with A/C repairs....

The repair shops really stick it to their customers in the cost for the parts because historically, people have come to know that A/C repairs are supposed to be expensive. The markup to list price they charge is insane. When I was running an auto parts store, it was very common for a shop to buy an A/C compressor for under $200 and sell it for over $400. The $1.99 orifice tube you are supposed to change anytime the system is open becomes $11.99. It is definitely a niche business that pays extremely well once you are established.

[Glenn]

That thing is probably literally costing him 5-10 miles per gallon.

[Nick Walter]

Jebus, how can the alternator on a small car power that thing?

[Enduro_Man]

Don't they sell dash-mounted electric fans anymore? And if you can't pick one up in at the Pep Boys in Houston, I'm sure you could easily find a bunch in Mexico.

[Mandrel]

Is this a commentary on the quality of the engineering program at the University of Houston?

[XPav]

Hey now, I know many fine mechanical engineers from the University of Houston, and I graduated from the CS department. Don't go knocking the Cougars.

[DT]

It was over 100 in Houston yesterday. Gonna be the same today. This guy may want to consider adding a ceiling fan.

[Skipper]

Everything goes better with duct tape.

[Rimbo]

Hey now, I know many fine mechanical engineers from the University of Houston, and I graduated from the CS department. Don't go knocking the Cougars.

they don't call it "cougar high" for nothin'

;)

[FIDGAF]

I wouldn't want to be anywhere near him if he had to stop short...

[Midnight Son]

Oh c'mon! It looks like he's got screws through the roof along with the black band holding it on. It might not pass inspection though. Assuming ya'll have car inspection in Tay-xas.

[Rimbo]

Oh c'mon! It looks like he's got screws through the roof along with the black band holding it on. It might not pass inspection though. Assuming ya'll have car inspection in Tay-xas.

My Dad was astonished to discover that California does not require inspection for all cars every year like Texas does.

Just sayin'.

[Nick Walter]

Some states have car inspection? And people put up with this?

[CastOutDevil]

The single black band holding the AC down matches the paint job. He gets style points.

[CounterMeasure]

Some states have car inspection? And people put up with this?

And on top of that inspection, some areas in those states require an emissions test to be run on the vehicle for an extra $20 on top of the inspection fee. They go as far as to make sure your gas cap has a good seal. If anything flags an error, you don't pass the inspection, and you don't get your sticker until you get it fixed. But you still get to pay the fee for that test.

[Skipper]

And on top of that inspection, some areas in those states require an emissions test to be run on the vehicle for an extra $20 on top of the inspection fee. They go as far as to make sure your gas cap has a good seal. If anything flags an error, you don't pass the inspection, and you don't get your sticker until you get it fixed. But you still get to pay the fee for that test.

... and if you skip the inspection, not only do you get a ticket if stopped, but if you wait long enough you'll also pay a fine which equates to about 10 times the inspection fee if you go longer than four months. And they flag your vehicle registration forcing you to pay the fine before being able to update that for the year as well.

In North Carolina it has morphed from a program to ensure cars on the road are safe to something completely bording on a huge moneymaking scam in the period of about 10 years here.

[wonderpug]

And on top of that inspection, some areas in those states require an emissions test to be run on the vehicle for an extra $20 on top of the inspection fee. They go as far as to make sure your gas cap has a good seal. If anything flags an error, you don't pass the inspection, and you don't get your sticker until you get it fixed. But you still get to pay the fee for that test.

In Massachusetts you have to pay the fee for a failed test, but after you fix your problem you get retested at the same garage for free.

[Enidigm]

Some states have car inspection? And people put up with this?

What's hilarious is that crossing the border between Texas, which requires inspection, and New Mexico, which doesn't, is like night and day. Or i should say, day and night, because it seems like none of the cars in NM have two working headlights :).

Inspections are very loose and quite dependent upon which garage you take it to (passing an item is something of a matter of interpretation), and basically every two-bit service shop offers inspections, so the results vary wildly.

[Jason McCullough]

Texas is crazy serious about its driving culture. Yearly inspections, insanely nice roads that are the only thing they really spend money on in the state, etc.

[Enidigm]

Texas is crazy serious about its driving culture. Yearly inspections, insanely nice roads that are the only thing they really spend money on in the state, etc.

Good observation. Sure the interstates are nice, but when the Farm-to-Market roads out in the middle of nowhereville are better than State highways in New Mexico or Oklahoma, it's sort of funny.

Driving into Texas from NM is like driving into Texas from old Mexico, the road quality improves so much (although it has gotten better in the last few years); i think Texas is just showing off a bit though.

[Rimbo]

Texas is crazy serious about its driving culture. Yearly inspections, insanely nice roads that are the only thing they really spend money on in the state, etc.

Yes. If your state was 261,797 square miles with the population spread all over through it (unlike California & Alaska where the bulk of the population all lives in the same area), you'd take your road system seriously, too.

It's not that Texas throws their money into the roads willy-nilly, either; for example, Texas DPS is a single department that serves the roles of both the DMV and Highway Patrol. This saves the state a lot of money in administrative costs. It's something that e.g. California could learn from.

[CounterMeasure]

Texas is crazy serious about its driving culture. Yearly inspections, insanely nice roads that are the only thing they really spend money on in the state, etc.

You forgot the lottery. We spend crazy money on advertising for that too.

[John E. Motion]

Ummmn, why doesn't he just get a manual and fix his A/C? He's a freaking engineer for fck's sakes.

[Rimbo]

1. Civil Engineer
2. University of Houston

[Enidigm]

3. Texas' great road system
4. Collapsed bridges in Minnesota.

5. ....

6. PROFIT???

[CounterMeasure]

Ummmn, why doesn't he just get a manual and fix his A/C? He's a freaking engineer for fck's sakes.

Working on A/C systems isn't as easy as you might think. I have done countless A/C repairs and retrofits, and I still get one now and then that throws me for a loop on a leak or a compressor failure, so I wouldn't recommend the average Joe dig into one without someone with some know-how there to reign you in when you are doing something wrong. Besides, most shade-tree manuals, like a Chilton's or a Hayne's book, will tell you to go see a mechanic in the A/C section anyway.

But if he was determined to go look into it himself to save some cash, fixing it or not depends on the problem. If his car is old enough (and I can't tell what exactly it is in the pictures), he may have a system designed for the older R-12 refrigerant. You can't get that without a license, atleast not legally. He could retrofit the system to R-134a, but on many cars, this is can get expensive because you usually have to change all the seals on the lines and so forth to be compatible with the new refrigerant and PAG or Ester oil. It could also be he has a bad problem like a leak in the evaporator core, which in most cases requires you to pretty much have to pull the dash out of the car to get to it. I could go on on the possibilities, but you should get the idea.

Not to mention in order to do an A/C system, you need some specialized tools, like a set of refrigerant gauges, and a vacuum pump in addition to the standard tools. Those can be a bit pricey, especially if you don't plan to use them in the future on other jobs.

[Incendiary Lemon]

Some local colleges would have facilities he could use and tools. Even the local auto quicki marts will let your rent and barring that they might take a return on used equipment.

That said on my car doing serious AC work involves pulling the dashboard. Your first time it will be at least eight hours work carefully documenting each and every screw along the way.

[FIDGAF]

Look! Tom's Car!

[John E. Motion]

Your first time it will be at least eight hours work carefully documenting each and every screw along the way.
Maybe he likes flight sims?