Since it’s start getting cold, I was looking for a hat that covers my ears while riding Miata. And NO, my top is not broken… Unless it’s raining hard, it’s Miata Day and no top! (I’ll think about snow once it starts snowing… I have snow tire on my RX-8, but not for Miata…)
Anyhow, because so cold, I figured I don’t need my AC. Well… truth is I found my AC was not working this summer, and while working on her the other day, I found quite a big nick on my AC hose… which means, no refrigerant = no worry about discharging freon in the air.
So here it comes, garage night Wednesday.
I had a several references I found on Miata.Net so it started off fairly easy.
- Start with removing under body plastic cover and air duct.
First bolt, Snap! oh crap. Second, third, fourth… snap..
well, I ended up breaking 2 bolts and one nut as I was trying to remove them… not even with excess force, and with plenty of PB Blaster… the bolts were so rusted, it was just twisting off like a toothpick…Once I removed the under carriage cover, I found the air duct was broken in two pieces… well.. American Engineering with Japanese precision… nice clean duct tape job…
- Disconnecting the tube fitting for the AC hose.
As I was expected, not even a hint of gas came out of the fitting. However, One of the fitting did not disconnect easily, so I decided to cut the metal tubing right at the nick I found the other day.
Also remove the clip holding the hose. there are a few under the car, and a couple from the top. - Remove AC Hose.
You can wiggle it out from the bottom side once all the clips are freed. - Remove AC condenser (the radiator looking thing in front of the actual radiator).
There’s 3 bolts and 1 nut you can access from the bottom of the car on the front side. Once freed the condenser, carefully lower it without hitting the Radiator. this should be fairly easy once all the hoses are disconnected. - Remove belt.
From the top, the small pulley at the top is the tensioner. The screw behind adjust the tension of the belt, on normal car… Of course mine is special tensioner pulley is stack where it is, and loosening tensioner did not loosen the belt. well… I ended up using the paint can opener, to ply off the belt off the tensioner… - Remove Compressor.
- From the top of the compressor there is one wire connected to a coupler around the headlight retractor motor. Disconnect the coupler, and remove the bolt holding the wire to the chassis.
- From the top, remove 2 Bolts holding the compressor to the bracket
- From the bottom, remove 3 bolts holding the compressor to the bracket. 2 of them runs side way, and 1 is from front to back. You need to replace this last bolt with M8x1.25-45mm bolt.
- Remove Compressor Bracket.
There are 4 bolts holding the bracket - Remove Tensioner Pulley.
There are 3 bolts holding the Pulley to the engine. - Remove AC Fan.
- From the bottom, remove 4 bolts holding the 2 fans.
- from the top, disconnect wires to the each fans
- Remove 2 bolts holding the radiator fan (Driver Side), and carefully remove the fan. Do not damage the radiator!
- Remove 2 bolts holding the AC Fan, and the slide it to where radiator fan was, and remove it carefully.
- Put the car back together!
- Install Radiator Fan. 2 bolts on top, electric connector, 2 bolts on the bottom
- Install Radiator Air Duct. In my case, Duct tape them together, and search for matching bolt from my nuts/bolts bucket to match broken and missing bolts…
- Install the Under carriage plastic cover.
- Remove Evaporation box behind the dash.
I did not this step tonight since it was already getting pretty late. Probably I’ll do this another time when I get chance. Also I didn’t have a replacement hose to do this step - Weigh, How much weight you saved by removing the AC!
This is a particularly important step to feel the accomplishment.
For me, it was just over 37 Lb. Evaporation box should not weigh much but still almost 40LB once I finish removing all components!
I’m planning to take all the removed parts to the scrap. even if they don’t take it for much money, this should the least expensive prep for the next autocorss season.
