At Home Mechanic

Of course you can not just replace the compressor, the dryer also needed to be replaced and I needed the oil that lives inside the guts of the air conditioning system, all of these things help run up the bill for parts to a point that required four portraits of Ben Franklin and not much change in return. Having spent all that money, I cheap-ed out and did not replace the tiny gaskets that keeps the Freon inside the A/C system (Hey, they looked good to me). Once the system was all put together and charged with $50 worth of hard to find Freon (the old A/C Freon that my old car requires puts a hole in the Ozone Layer) it worked fine... for about a month before all the Freon leaked out through the gaskets I had not replaced.

Sloth led me to ignore the non-functioning A/C for a couple of years. In a burst of energy and boredom I tore the entire system apart, replaced the gaskets and had the system recharged again. The A/C blew ice cold and I felt vindicated.

I do not use the car very much; it is meant for amateur speed events and the occasional car show, it was never intended to be a daily driver in my fleet. Over the course of the last year I have become more serious about producing power from the engine and so I changed the throttle body (think of a carburetor but without the gasoline, that is fed by the fuel injection) for a high performance piece. This new high performance throttle body has no provision for adjusting the engine's idle speed when the A/C is on (the A/C adds drag to the engine and it might stall if the idle is not adjusted up during A/C operation). Every time I came to a stop sign I had to turn off the A/C to keep the engine from dieing. That got old in big hurry.

Finally I came to the realization that 40-50 pounds of air conditioning equipment that I do not use in a car that needs every ounce of weight reduction for optimum performance was a waste. The A/C must go!

I started by having the Freon removed by a qualified facility that could keep it contained and not contaminate the atmosphere. I brought the car back to my garage and began the orgy of removal.

Usually when you remove something from your car, you intend to replace it eventually. Great care and attention to detail should be taken so that the At Home Mechanic can put everything back in the same way as when you removed it. But when you are tearing something out with no intention of replacing it, the At Home Mechanic can indulge in a bit of blood lust in ripping and removing. High-powered power tools, shears and plain old brute strength are allowed.

Ah, the cathartic pleasure of lightening you car. As legendary Lotus Cars designer Colin Chapman was famously quoted as saying, "Add lightness." The lightness has been added; 50 pounds of weight removal in my car is equal to adding about three-horse power to my engine. So with the removal of air conditioning from my car I have taken a decisive step to casting my 1987 Honda CRX as a dedicated performance car with little or no provisions for creature comforts.