Compressor Fiasco Follow Up and Hanging Suggestion
 

To follow up on my earlier post regarding a "difficult" situation with removing the A/C compressor from my 85.5 - the P.O. had, for whatever ungodly reason, left a lump of J.B. weld (or something similar) near the inside end of the front compressor bolt - in a place that was pretty much impossible to reach. I tried using my dentists mirror (which I'd purchased for an earlier thermostat extraction - ha!) - but working upside down and backwards really doesn't cut it. So I ended up unbolting the very sturdy mounting bracket with compressor attached, and wired this up to the headlight bar (seems very sturdy) - then basically (painstakingly) re-cut "threads" in the JB weld (tough stuff!) using my Dremel with the cut-off wheel held at an angle. Took some time, but it worked.

The upshot of the above is that I needed to bolt the support bracket back on, as it supports the front engine lift. Big advantage for me - as I was able to hang the compressor itself from the headlight bar prior to bolting the support bracket back on (could not do this with bracket in place).

At any rate, for those of you who have removed everything under the wheel wells (brakes/wheels/struts/arms), and need to hang a compressor someplace - you should consider unbolting and temporarily hanging the support bracket, removing the compressor and hanging it from the headlight bar, then replacing the bracket if you need to drop your engine. This gets the compressor truly out of the way.

Thanks for the tip.

-Dan C.

But it takes all the fun out of doing ac work! Why not take the chance to drain all the oil out of the compressor, flush the lines, suck it down and blow it full of refrigerant? Just joking, I leave mine alone and a/c is what I do.

a/c is what you do? I will take the opportunity to add one step you missed - add new oil.