1989 2.9 Automatic, A/C delete?

[RobbieD]

Those books are exactly what you need. Good score!

No, you should not get any pressure when you loosen the hoses. What I described is simply just a "best practice" routine, for any time that you first open an AC system.

Seriously, congratulations on the shop manuals. It's money well spent, and you'll find them invaluable. The full wiring diagram would be cool to have, but the EVTM is all that you need for electrical.

Good luck!

 

[eightynine4x4]

Those books are exactly what you need. Good score!

No, you should not get any pressure when you loosen the hoses. What I described is simply just a "best practice" routine, for any time that you first open an AC system.

Seriously, congratulations on the shop manuals. It's money well spent, and you'll find them invaluable. The full wiring diagram would be cool to have, but the EVTM is all that you need for electrical.

Good luck!

The manuals were immediately usable. Had some struggle with disconnecting the large hex coupling situation in between top of accumulator and heat box, but was able to check high detail diagrams to be sure which nut was supposed to turn and which is fixed. Applied force with two opposing wrenches and got it done.

Have everything out now except for the condenser. Both hoses are still connected to it, although their hose clamps are fully loosened. I took the battery out to gain more horizontal pulling room and the hoses twist fine around entry points but I had zero movement laterally trying to pull them out. So the hoses are kinda mysteriously stuck. This seems to be a discrepancy from the shop manual vs reality..in the shop diagrams there’s some kind of hookup looking thing for each, maybe a spring lock, just prior to bending and entering side of condenser, and there also like a 90 degree turn support bracket there too. But in reality I just have two hoses hard connected to the side of condenser, no spring locks and no bendy bracket. Almost makes me think these two hoses are after market, but no idea. In any case, I was tempted to cut them both to make my removal of condenser easier. I still actually haven’t figured out how easy removing the condenser is while keeping the radiator installed and loose, but assuming that’s possible i was just trying to get the hoses off first. But now I might just try getting it all unhooked and seeing if I can pull the condenser straight up while both hoses are still connected. I already have both hoses draped over top of the engine bay so those are in the clear except for the fact that they might need to snake under some electrical wiring conduit.

Anyways here’s the 2.9 1989 auto trans diagram in shop manual in case it helps someone else who finds this thread in future.

 

[RobbieD]

Pull the radiator. It makes getting the condenser out easy and straightforward. And it's a perfect opportunity to clean the radiator; you put some cleaning solution in it, rock it back and forth at all angles, and flush it good with a hose.

If the condenser and hoses at the condenser are Ford stock, they're held by spring-locks. It'll take the right tool to release them, and there's a section on spring-locks in the manual.

Good work; you're making great progress.

 

[eightynine4x4]

Pull the radiator. It makes getting the condenser out easy and straightforward. And it's a perfect opportunity to clean the radiator; you put some cleaning solution in it, rock it back and forth at all angles, and flush it good with a hose.

If the condenser and hoses at the condenser are Ford stock, they're held by spring-locks. It'll take the right tool to release them, and there's a section on spring-locks in the manual.

Good work; you're making great progress.

Gotcha. Well, haha, I think I’ll just hold off until I do something else that requires dumping the coolant yet again since I just did that last month when changing thermostat. Dealing with disposing of coolant has proven to be a pain around here. I also dumped all the coolant and did a flush two years ago so still have buckets of it sitting around from that which I’m gradually taking to disposal location. I didn’t take the radiator out to do it but I did go through the process of flushing the radiator itself several times over.

There aren’t any spring locks at my connection points. I imagine that if I reinstall A/C in future that I’ll be ok with at least paying for two fresh new hoses so I’m ok with just cutting these close to condenser and sealing them. What’s interesting is that in that diagram there is some nice routing that takes the top hose behind the upper intake from compressor to condenser, but in my system it’s just one long large hose that drapes on top of intake and sits there making contact at all times. Annoying to work with in bay, and stupid looking. So if I redo AC some day I’d be happy to at least cut up and extend the hose around back, or just buy the proper hose that has those extra segments. Anyways, just justifying cutting these hoses. The other one, that drops down and under to heater box, is quite rusty so maybe would be smart to replace anyways.

I did want to delete the condenser though. It’s nice to remove all extra weight on truck whenever possible. Delete projects like this all slowly add up. So I’ll do it as soon as I do some other coolant work.

 

[RobbieD]

Sounds like, especially after I reread your prior post, the condenser has likely been replaced with aftermarket, too, like the compressor. If the condenser had worm clamps, then it uses a barbed fitting that the hoses are pushed on to, and then clamped. The only way to remove the hose from these is to carefully cut it off of the barbed fitting, and replace with new hose (unless there's extra length).

If you do decide to restore the AC someday, you'd want new hoses anyway. And you can put off removing the condenser, too, until later, like the next time the cooling system needs some attention.