On board air

[Bogus]

How do you lubricate the pump?

I think thats what the oiler on the suction side is for

[Sammyk]

I see it, the glass oiler bowl on the inlet.. Yup,yup got that now.

[brute]

As some of you are aware I have removed the air con from my truck and re-used the compressor to provide on board compressed air. I have attached some pics showing roughly how this was accomplished.

The air con radiator, engine bay pipe work and the tank behind the grill were all removed. The fittings that attach to the compressor were cut off the pipes and drilled and tapped to accept pneumatic fittings The blue pipe is the inlet, the white the outlet. The inlet side is fed from an airline oiler and a filter shown in the pic.

The outlet pipe is run down the chassis to the boot where it is plugged into a removable receiver tank. This was salvaged from an old compressor and means that it only needs to be fitted when needed - however this could be permanently fitted to the chassis under the truck.

Electrically you need a 12V feed (I took mine from the existing air con push button). This runs back to the pressure switch on the tank and then forward to the connection on the compressor. With the engine running, turning the air con switch on causes the compressor clutch to engage and start pumping air into the tank. When the set pressure is reached the pressure switch on the tank operates and the clutch drops out stopping the pump.

The pump is surprisingly efficient, taking the pictured tank to 100psi in less than 2 mins. At the weekend we used it to reseat and fill two tyres that had been pulled off the rims by a roll with no problem.

what his the max psi it builds up to

[Karma Supra]

I like this, I must admit I didn't realise the oil resevoir was seperate, I thought the lubricant was part of the coolant.

Nice work!

[Bogus]

I like this, I must admit I didn't realise the oil resevoir was seperate, I thought the lubricant was part of the coolant.

Nice work!

What coolant ? Theres no coolant in this system. Its just taking in air, mixing in a wee bit of lubricant and compressing it using the old air con compressor.
The oil will end up in the receiver, where I suppose it is drained off from time to time, and possibly returned to the oiler or thrown away.
When it was an A/C system ( closed loop) the oil would have been in the system and mixed with the refrigerant in the compressor, but this is not a closed loop hence the need for an oiler.

[Karma Supra]

By coolant I meant refrigerant when in "factory" mode... - and what you have said ties up with how I understand aircon pumps to work!

What I have obviosly missed is the oil gets in now

[Karma Supra]

D'oh, seen the oiler... Makes sense now!