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<<< Air Conditioning / Power Steering Removal >>> |
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Theory: The A/C doesn't work on my car, and the power steering is way too over-assisted, so I decided to remove these features to save some (read: lots!) of weight and eliminate some clutter. I decided to remove both at once, since this makes the belt setup much easier - a single belt runs from the inner crank accessory pulley to the water pump pulley and to the alternator pulley. Parts Needed: There are several methods to perform this removal, so I will show you a parts list for each one. The first method is only removing the AC, the easiest method. The second is removing both AC and PS and using a modified stock bracket. This is just a little bit harder. The final method is removing both the AC and PS and using a Euro spec non-AC bracket. Although the Euro bracket is much lighter, it requires more work to get everything to line up properly.
AC only removal |
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First, take your
car to your local mechanic and have them evacuate your A/C. Tearing
your A/C lines apart without doing this is a sure way to anger mother
nature - your car will surely explode unexpectedly sometime.
;) |
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| (Click for larger images) | |
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These are the lines you'll initially be working with (arrows). You've got a decision to make: cut the A/C lines at the firewall (thus preserving the grommets) or unhook them from the interior and pull them out - grommets and all (leaving two 1.5" holes to be plugged). I went the hard way and removed them from the interior... |
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Two Phillips head screws hold the carpet on the underside of the glove-box to the floor (arrows). Remove them then bend the glove-box carpet up and out of your way. |
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Now look for the A/C lines behind the carpet. They may have insulation around them - remove it. Using a large, adjustable wrench and lots of strength, loosen the bolts around the fittings (arrows). Once loose, a little more muscle breaks the connections apart. |
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Now work at
removing the grommets (green arrows). Use a small flat-head screwdriver to pry them
out far enough to get your fingers in there. Then you can just
carefully pull them out with your hands. Before you can move the large A/C line anywhere, you must unbolt the mount on the shock tower which holds it down (blue arrow). |
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The smaller of the two lines runs to the receiver/drier (underneath the washer fluid reservoir). Unbolt the fitting (orange arrow), and also unbolt the fitting going from the receiver/drier to the condenser as well (blue arrow). Two bolts hold the bracket for the receiver/drier down (green arrows). Unbolt them, take the unit out, and toss the sucker for a few free pounds. |
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Now you can pull the lines out of the firewall. Since both lines have bends in them on the inside of the car, you'll have to do some twisting and turning to work them out of the firewall. The small line you can toss at this point, but the large line is still connected to the A/C compressor, which will come out later... |
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I plugged the holes using rubber stoppers, available at your local hardware store. The size I used was 1 5/8" x 1 5/16". Later I found properly sized grommets off a junkyard car and used those instead. |
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Now disconnect the other large line, which is connected to the condenser (green arrow). |
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Unscrew the radiator mounts, and tilt back the radiator as far as you can to remove the condenser. (It helps if you remove the radiator fan first, but can be done regardless.) The condenser is held by two bolts at the top corners. There are also a few electrical connections at the passenger side of the condenser which need to be disconnected. Be careful not to make a mess of your radiator fins when sliding the condenser out. |
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Now start removing the accessories; start with the alternator (3 bolts and a few electrical connections removes it), then the AC compressor (1 bolts on the side, 2 nut/bolts on the front), then the power steering if you're removing it (can't remember how many bolts). For now, just let the power steering dangle by its hose. |
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Power steering removal only: Once you've got all the accessories removed, you can also remove the water pump pulleys and get rid of all the accessory drive belts if you haven't already. |
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At this point, you should have something that looks like this picture. To remove the cast bracket, take the four nuts on the front of it off (green arrows). The top two can't be seen in the picture due to the shadows. |
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Now it's time to put things back together. Start with your new (or modified) bracket. If you're removing both the AC and power steering, you can either use a modified stock bracket, or a Euro non-AC bracket. If you're only removing the AC, use a modified stock bracket. This pic shows the stock bracket vs. a modified stock bracket. |
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Power steering removal only: For the water pump pulley, you can either weld the inner one together (so that it doesn't free spin) or use a different pulley. I chose to use a different pulley, VW part number 027 121 031. The fitting of this pulley was a tiny bit too small for the water pump drive, so it had to be ground out a bit. |
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Power steering removal only: Bolt the (new) water pump pulley on. |
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Now re-install the alternator, mounting it in the location the AC compressor previously occupied, but pivot it up instead of down (see picture for reference). Leave the alternator mounting bolts loose in order to adjust belt tension later. Put the v-belt on at this time, too. |
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Once you've got everything in place, there's a few things to check: with the belt in place and relatively tight, make sure that the alternator's cooling fan blades have adequate clearance from the tensioning arm. Because of the alternator's new position, the arm may interfere with the fan blades. To remedy this, grind down the underside of the arm until you've got some clearance. |
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Also, make sure the pulleys line up good. The original bracket I used lined up the stock alternator pulley perfectly with the inner crank pulley and the water pump pulley. You may have to use a washer or two under the alternator pulley, or a different pulley altogether. Again, the the Euro bracket requires an extended pulley (from an A2 with no A/C, part number 026 903 119). |
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Once you've got the belt tensioned good, crank down the alternator. (A good rule of thumb to use when tensioning the v-belt is that with your thumb and forefinger, you should be able to twist the belt about 90 degrees, and not much more.) |
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Now for the power steering. The lines running to and from the steering rack cross near each other at the front of the car. I cut them there (using a hacksaw) as if I was going to splice them together (which I did). A few hose clamps and a properly sized bolt stuffed in the line can hold the cut lines together, at least until you replace your rack with a manual one. |
| Now you should only have the power steering pump dangling by the reservoir line. Just pop the reservoir out of its bracket and take it out through the bottom of the car... Um, that's it! | |
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You may want to remove the A/C thermofuse and relay from the fuse box. If you don't do this, the idle will still kick up and the fan will turn on when you pull the heater control to any of the A/C positions - I *believe* removing the fuses cures this. I left mine in place so that I can manually turn the fan on by switching on the (now non-existent) A/C. This diagram (from the Bentley manual) depicts which position these fuses are in. (Relay = 5, Thermofuse = 17) |
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The finished product... |
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