327/365 with A/C Questions

[Joe C.]

I'm thinking about adding Vintage Air to my 327/365, which did not originally come with A/C. It appears that those originally equipped with air had the compressor mounted on the passenger side, which is great. So I need to move the alternator over to the left side..........no problem. I have a few questions:

1. Did the compressor originally use a deep pulley to match the deep pulleys on the crank and water pump and alternator.
2. Does this require the elimination of the idler pulley.
3. Do I use the same water pump, balancer and alternator pulleys.

Thank you.

[Larry M.]

Re: 327/365 with A/C Questions

Joe:

The AIM for your year car should have all this info, and is probably the best source outside of Joe Lucia.

The 327/365 engine when equipped with AC used a special AC compressor with a special/larger diameter clutch pulley to keep compressor RPMs down. The AC alternator was also special (higher output) and likely had a deep pulley as well.

My 1967 factory AC 327/350 HP car does not use a captive belt like the non-AC 327/350 HP cars...............it uses only two belts: crank-AC compressor-water pump and crank-alternator-water pump.

Hope this helps. Your AIM will have all the details.

Larry

[Joe L.]

Re: 327/365 with A/C Questions

I'm thinking about adding Vintage Air to my 327/365, which did not originally come with A/C. It appears that those originally equipped with air had the compressor mounted on the passenger side, which is great. So I need to move the alternator over to the left side..........no problem. I have a few questions:

1. Did the compressor originally use a deep pulley to match the deep pulleys on the crank and water pump and alternator.
2. Does this require the elimination of the idler pulley.
3. Do I use the same water pump, balancer and alternator pulleys.

Thank you.

Joe-------


First of all, I'm going to assume that you have not retrofitted power steering to the car which would make this question almost impossible to answer.

Even without power steering, GM has made this a VERY difficult question to answer. GM says that in PRODUCTION your application used waterpump pulley GM #3850979 and alternator pulley GM #3848023. The problem is I can find no information that these part numbers ever existed. It's, of course, possible that they did, but, if so, they were never available in SERVICE. That also means there's no way to determine if there are any supercessive part numbers. In turn, that means I have no way of determining their size or configuration.

In any event, here's what I THINK would work for your application with A/C:

balancer pulley------GM #3858533--deep groove (you should have this pulley now; if not it's still available from GM)

waterpump pulley-----GM #3848904--deep groove (you MAY have this pulley now; GM #3995641 is supercessive but discontinued)

alternator pulley-----GM #3846180--deep groove (you MAY have this pulley now; GM #3844100 is supercessive but discontinued)

The SHP applications may have originally used a different A/C compressor pulley than other applications. However, if so, no such pulley was ever available in SERVICE. The only pulley GM ever cataloged in SERVICE for your application was GM #5914745 (discontinued without supersession).

I believe the idler pulley was eliminated for your application with A/C.

[James G.]

Re: 327/365 with A/C Questions

Over the years Bill, I have been told the ''larger AC pully'' was found standard on Cadillac and Buick AC systems. I never checked. 365ac cars are unique in 64 and 65 production. About 138 convertible and 228 coupes made each year. Now, 50 plus years later, good luck finding parts.

In 1973 I owned a 66 L-79 AC convert I bought from the original owner who was going thru a divorce. It was a great car, but I always had to turn the AC off climbing the GRAPEVINE I-5 in and out of Los Angeles from / to Bakersfield. Never overheated, but the gauge would climb past 200. I discovered that the top up, and windows down, wind wings turned inside out aided in cooling . Once on the flat highway, the AC worked well.

Unless you drive your 365hp every day Joe, I would leave it alone. Just my 2 cents.

[Joe C.]

Re: 327/365 with A/C Questions

All:

Since posting I have determined that 327/365 HP engines with C60 eliminate the idler, as Joe indicated. Also, in addition to moving the alternator to the left side, it now engages the INNER groove if the pump and balancer pulleys (formerly used by the idler pulley) and the compressor uses the outer groove, formerly used by the alternator.

Joe:
I have no (stinkin') power steering. I have all of the deep groove pulleys on the alt, balancer, idler and water pump. In other words the belt/pulley system uses original or reproductions of original parts.

James:
I drive the car quite a lot, and I also have TONS of reserve heat rejection capability because of certain modifications done to the engine and its cooling system. Running hot is not an issue.. What complicates matters is that I drag race it as well, and shift at 7500 RPM.

So, part of the reason for the original question is that I was concerned as to whether or not a 365 HP engine's a/c pulley was a DEEP GROOVE one. I see that it is of a larger diameter for this application, and I understand why. I also assume that many a compressor belt was thrown off by racers who didn't remove it on race day, because it doesn't appear to be deep grooved. The downside to removing that belt, is that if the alternator belt breaks during a run, the water pump/fan are no longer driven because of the absence of the idler pulley.

My plan was to remove the Vintage Air compressor belt on race days, and install the idler pulley and belt. This plan has to be scrapped because of the underlined sentence above!

[Gene M.]

Re: 327/365 with A/C Questions

Joe
I have vintage air on my 65 with the alternator on the rear pulley groove. It is around the crank and water pump mounted on left side using a 67 alternator braces. Also the alternator pulley is small diameter since I drive a lot over the road in overdrive. The pulley is the short style without the extra spacing on the alternator side. Consider 100 amp alternator or more to maintain the 13 to 14 volts for everything. Compressor mounting is in forward pulley grooves making it simple to take off belt for drag racing. The pulley diameter is the standard that comes on the compressor. All my pulleys look to be deeper than most I see. But that could be my real 3/8 belts vs the 7/16 on repops. Good luck on your conversion.

PS you will see more heat since that condenser blocks a lot of the radiator air and pre heats it.

[Larry M.]

Re: 327/365 with A/C Questions

Over the years Bill, I have been told the ''larger AC pully'' was found standard on Cadillac and Buick AC systems. I never checked. 365ac cars are unique in 64 and 65 production. About 138 convertible and 228 coupes made each year. Now, 50 plus years later, good luck finding parts.

In 1973 I owned a 66 L-79 AC convert I bought from the original owner who was going thru a divorce. It was a great car, but I always had to turn the AC off climbing the GRAPEVINE I-5 in and out of Los Angeles from / to Bakersfield. Never overheated, but the gauge would climb past 200. I discovered that the top up, and windows down, wind wings turned inside out aided in cooling . Once on the flat highway, the AC worked well.

Unless you drive your 365hp every day Joe, I would leave it alone. Just my 2 cents.

Jim:

NCRS Judging Manual for 1965 states that all base, 300 HP and 350 HP air conditioned cars have a compressor with a 5.75 inch outside diameter pulley. For 365 HP cars this pulley diameter is 6.375 inches.

I have also seen this difference on these cars.

Larry

[James G.]

Re: 327/365 with A/C Questions

''The downside to removing that belt, is that if the alternator belt breaks during a run, the water pump/fan are no longer driven because of the absence of the idler pulley.''.......

It has been 22 years, but when I raced my 64 B/P Fuel car, I found a belt that I could bump onto the water pump / crank pulley. This way, if I lost the alternator belt, I could drive without losing water pump back to the pits and run on the battery only. Not perfect, but worked. I don't remember the part number. Used a string to get size and then used the parts book.

[Joe C.]

Re: 327/365 with A/C Questions

Joe
I have vintage air on my 65 with the alternator on the rear pulley groove. It is around the crank and water pump mounted on left side using a 67 alternator braces. Also the alternator pulley is small diameter since I drive a lot over the road in overdrive. The pulley is the short style without the extra spacing on the alternator side. Consider 100 amp alternator or more to maintain the 13 to 14 volts for everything. Compressor mounting is in forward pulley grooves making it simple to take off belt for drag racing. The pulley diameter is the standard that comes on the compressor. All my pulleys look to be deeper than most I see. But that could be my real 3/8 belts vs the 7/16 on repops. Good luck on your conversion.

PS you will see more heat since that condenser blocks a lot of the radiator air and pre heats it.

Gene,
I've been thinking about the alternator's capacity, as mine is with the larger deep groove pulley used with 365/375 engines. I will keep that pulley since it has deep groove. When Pirkle rebuilt it, I asked him to upgrade it so I believe it's capable of 63 amps like the ones used with air cars back in the day. Another important factor is that my headlights/brights all use original T3 bulbs, non-DOT which are dimmer than Gomer Pyle.They don't draw much current.

I also realize that the car wasn't designed for the Sanden compressor, but reading VA's literature, I see that the Sanden is designed to put very little load on the engine, unlike the original Frigidaire A6. It delivers less than half the CFM as the A6 and that's all that it needs because the modern condenser makes it possible to drop the air temp MORE than the A6, but with less than 1/2 the flowrate!

One more thing...................based on the vagueness of VA's literature and mix/match parts availability, I realize that this installation might require quite a bit of fine tuning based on an application such as mine. As such, it looks like I need the 1963-65 kit with short refrigerant lines (compressor on pass side), alt bracket for left side, 2" spacers for mounting alt and comp brackets to headers, 2 belts, some heater hose, refrigerant, PAG oil, and possibly a wire harness to relocate the alternator. I guess if an adapter harness is not available from VA I can either make one myself or simply buy a new engine harness from LL for 1965 air car.

[Joe C.]

Re: 327/365 with A/C Questions

''The downside to removing that belt, is that if the alternator belt breaks during a run, the water pump/fan are no longer driven because of the absence of the idler pulley.''.......

It has been 22 years, but when I raced my 64 B/P Fuel car, I found a belt that I could bump onto the water pump / crank pulley. This way, if I lost the alternator belt, I could drive without losing water pump back to the pits and run on the battery only. Not perfect, but worked. I don't remember the part number. Used a string to get size and then used the parts book.

Great idea........just like the captive belt used on some 327/350s.
How did you get the belt off?

[Gene M.]

Re: 327/365 with A/C Questions

Gene,
I've been thinking about the alternator's capacity, as mine is with the larger deep groove pulley used with 365/375 engines. I will keep that pulley since it has deep groove. When Pirkle rebuilt it, I asked him to upgrade it so I believe it's capable of 63 amps like the ones used with air cars back in the day. Another important factor is that my headlights/brights all use original T3 bulbs, non-DOT which are dimmer than Gomer Pyle.They don't draw much current.




I also realize that the car wasn't designed for the Sanden compressor, but reading VA's literature, I see that the Sanden is designed to put very little load on the engine, unlike the original Frigidaire A6. It delivers less than half the CFM as the A6 and that's all that it needs because the modern condenser makes it possible to drop the air temp MORE than the A6, but with less than 1/2 the flowrate!

One more thing...................based on the vagueness of VA's literature and mix/match parts availability, I realize that this installation might require quite a bit of fine tuning based on an application such as mine. As such, it looks like I need the 1963-65 kit with short refrigerant lines (compressor on pass side), alt bracket for left side, 2" spacers for mounting alt and comp brackets to headers, 2 belts, some heater hose, refrigerant, PAG oil, and possibly a wire harness to relocate the alternator. I guess if an adapter harness is not available from VA I can either make one myself or simply buy a new engine harness from LL for 1965 air car.

Consider the 67 interior air ducts as I had much better fit in my 65. Also 63 amps is better served with a 105 amp internal solid state regulator if running air and at night. I run halogen seal beams. My entire forward harness is custom made and uses larger wire gauge. You have more gear than I do so the larger pulley s/b ok. The biggest concern is the air in front of the radiator that the condenser blocks off. So removing engine heat becomes one major concern. Running the air does have a direct effect of raising engine temperature and can be seen on the gage. The vintage air does a fantastic job cooling the interior down.

Also consider the EZ Clip Type fittings as the hoses are much smaller outside diameter but same inside. They route better and are far superior. Sold by Bus Stop. You can make up your own hoses.

[Gerard F.]

Re: 327/365 with A/C Questions

Joe,

Here's the Vintage Air compressor pulley setup on my 67. I went with the Vintage Air aluminum pulleys and their recommended belts.

The crank pulley has three grooves as I also have add-on Power Steering.



For what it's worth.