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Yes! I did end up needing a shorter belt, the stock one "works" but the tensioner is at full extension. Ended up going with a ACDelco 6K935

I’m still very happy with it. I eventually found a modern parallel-flow condenser and it blows cold like a brand new car. If the standard compressor is the same from 87-89 it might work… but checking with the manufacturer is always the best bet!

@@brickheadgarage554 Manufacturer says it wont fit the 89 cars....but..I cannot see why it wouldnt. 6 groove Belt, correct connector and location for the coil. I think there are no differences with the actual size of the R4 housing itself. If I compare the standard R4 piston compressor of my car with the standard R4 of a 1989 C1500 pickup (for which there is a scroll compressor available), the only difference ist the pulley diameter. Which would be no problem with a shorter belt...Ill keep researching for a bit an maybe just try it. I really want the silent compressor

@@hakaluku Pulley diameter is smaller, I switched to a shorter belt and had no issues on mine, sounds to me like it might work! Up to you if you want to send it though

@@brickheadgarage554 I ordered the scroll version, have everything ready for install next weekend. I will let you know if it worked. Thx for your response 👌🏻

@@brickheadgarage554 Got the scroll compressor installed, fits perfectly. Shorter belt and it runs SILENT. I love it. Cools very good although it was only 80°F with 55%. Lets see on a hotter day.

I definitely recommend getting the AC fixed for defogging, that has arguably been the best part of getting it working for me. As far as what needs to be done, first of all, if it leaked out, you need to fix the leak. If you have an original system, chances are pretty good it was the compressor. The original R4 compressors have large O-rings that go around the entire perimeter of the casing and leak all the time, hence why I went with the scroll-style retrofit (still working great by the way!). While you've got the system open, it'll take you 20 minutes to replace all of the O-rings for the lines, very worthwhile and simple to do. As for the retrofit, two things you'll need to replace: the accumulator canister (~20$ on Rockauto) and the orifice tube. There are discussions online on thirdgen.org about the reasons behind it, but I went for a blue "Ford" orifice tube as recommended by Lsxmatt in this video (highly recommend watching it btw): ruclips.net/video/dGEATP83k0M/видео.html&ab_channel=Lsxmatt Other than that, throw some cheap adapter fittings on and take it to your local shop to have it charged. If it's been leaking this long you'll want to pull a vacuum to boil off any moisture inside the system, so unless you want to invest in the tools I'd just take it to a shop. If you do all of the other work yourself you'd likely come in under that $1000 mark even if you buy a new compressor. Best of luck!!

@@brickheadgarage554 LOL! Are you in VCG? (Vancouver Camaro Group)

It's been working flawlessly ever since! Managed to find a parallel flow condencer (Spectra Premium 7-3231, labbelled as stock replacement, happens to be parallel flow) and I've been loving it. No issues with the scroll-style compressor at all.

Interesting! It's been a while, but re-watching the footage looks like of the 3 wires that were present in my 4-pin connector (only 3 of which were used), one was ground (Black), one controls the radiator fan (green) and one connects the low-pressure switch to the high-pressure switch and also connects to the ECM. If there is a fourth wire rather than just three, I would guess that would be related to a dual-fan setup? (not sure) and if it's only two, I would guess that either it is missing the radiator fan signal or it is missing the ground connection. It would be pretty easy to check if either of the two pins on your male connector are ground by using the continuity setting on a multimeter. To discover what the other pin does (or what both do if neither are ground) follow roughly what I did in the video and try and see where each wire connects. I'm willing to bet that one of the wires on the body connector will connect to the high-pressure switch, this pin would need to connect to the pin on your 4-pin a/c harness that connects to the low-pressure switch. As for testing if a wire is connected to the radiator fan relay, I never did this testing and relied on the wiring diagram from the Hanes manual, but you could try disconnecting the radiator fan relay and probing the pins there. I'm assuming the 4-pin a/c harness you have is the same as what's in the video here? If so you should be able to decipher the pinout from the video. I think what is likely is that the 2-pin connector has 2 of the 3 connections you need, and you simply need to put on your own connectors to correctly connect the individual wires. Ironically I found some of the best resources for figuring out what the AC wiring did was to watch videos on people wiring up AC in these cars for LS swaps, as they go into detail about what the bare minimum wiring you need is, so I'd recommend looking into that if you get stuck. Feel free to reply with more questions and I'll try my best to help! Good luck!

@@brickheadgarage554 I tested the green wire and it does lead to the compressor clutch and pressure switch, the black wire is indeed ground. The a/c harness i bought doesnt have a red wire with grey connector like yours at 17:48 , but my car has it, im guessing this is what supplies power to the high blower relay? If so, that means one of the wires on the female 4 pin connector is supposed to connect to it since it goes to the relay. GM probably got rid of the crappy grey connector that was broken in your video and put the red wire in the 4 pin connector. I'll head to my garage now and will try to find out what the other unknown wire does. The haynes wiring diagrams state that there should be no difference in wiring between 88-92, which is sort of the case since our cars switched to serpentine belts in 88 and hasnt changed after, but it doesnt say what connectors are used for all those wires, and it seems some connectors were swapped out. Btw, did your car originally have a connector that looks like a pressure switch in a loom close to the hard line that connects the evaporator and condenser? I saw on TGO that there is a pressure switch in the line that tells the secondary radiator fan to turn on when the system reaches a certain pressure Thank you very much for the help, i searched a lot on TGO about this swap, but almost all the threads say that the "a/c challenged car" should be sold to buy an a/c car. Finding your post on the forum with these videos linked is what finally made me pull the trigger as almost everything related to the swap is shown in this series. Cheers!

The ac hardline I got has the connector for the secondary radiator fan but my car only came with a single radiator fan so I left it unplugged, I haven’t checked if there’s a connector for it hiding in the wiring harness, I would assume the harness would be different for single vs dual radiator fans? But hey! My car came without ac and had the connectors for it so could be wrong. As for the connectors you might be onto something! And if that is the case it should be possible to connect everything so long as you find all the wires on both sides, let me know how it goes! I’m sure it’ll all work in the end!!!

@@brickheadgarage554 Thanks, I found his video after watching yours. I found both the AC Delco and the off-brand five piece washer seal/adapter kit to correct this flush vs offset compressor/line problem after watching Horsepower House's video. We are supposed to get the seal kit in today. I brought it to the attention of the commercial sales rep that they should do a service bulletin about those compressors needing the adapter kit when replacing an OEM compressor that is most likely a flush line mount, since their compressor "kits" come with a compressor, accumulator, orifice tube filter, system o-rings, and a can of system flush.

Thank you! I hope to keep this girl running for years to come, they just don't make 'em like this anymore!

Thank you! It's my first time but am trying my best to do things as "properly" as I can.

I’m a little late but hopefully you got it fixed!!!

It's really not too bad, though If I had to do anything differently it would be to get a leveler and pull the trans with the engine. The trans is easier to put back in as a combo as well

Honestly trying to not pull the trans out. But ill have to get under it and loo

That’s a great option too! I just didn’t have the room in my single car garage for it unfortunately

Thanks man! Sounds like a sweet ride you’ve got!!

It took me about 3-4 weeks of off and on working on it, in terms of hours, maybe somewhere in the 20 hour range? The engine bay stuff isn't too bad, I would say the most time consuming part is removing the dash to reach the air-diverter airbox and swap the blower motor wiring harness. I actually found an AC dashboard (with the vents on the sides) and have sinced swapped that in, (might make it into a future video), so I've done that part twice and can say that its definately the "worst" part of the procedure.

@@brickheadgarage554 Yes i thought so too, removing such a large piece then dealing with all the spaghetti under doesnt look fun

@@dwarrowdelf8554 Tedious but not impossible, and I can say for me personally, it was absolutely worth the struggle!

Thanks so much! I should have more content out very soon!

Indeed. He does very detailed and thorough videos which is why I subscribed :-)

I ordered direct from COSMO Racing (link in video description)

I wish you the best of luck with your build! These are really fun cars and I'm sure it will be worth it when it finally hits the road!

@@brickheadgarage554 Thank you, I hope your video series does really well on here!

That’s awesome! I’m sorry I’m so late responding to this comment, I hope your project worked out!

Thank you so much! I'm glad you enjoyed it!!!

I don't believe I remember seeing one back there unfortunately

Thanks so much!

160 for the pro-5.0 ain't bad! and it at least has the adjustment bolts to prevent over-shifting for the extra money you paid. But yeah, its a pretty unknown shifter, but I'm very happy with it :)

What a shame! Luckily the hardest part is actually finding the parts. It'll be worth it in the end I promise you that!

Glad it helped! What motor are you swapping in? Whatever it is would probably kick the snot out of my bone-stock 305 hahaha

@@brickheadgarage554 5.3 Ls I bought the car with a messed up tranny motor runs but needs carb work tune and gaskets so i reasoned it out and would rather swap in the modern stuff with more power

Nope! I managed hook the AC to the existing vents (no side vents), you do need to "adapt" the AC air diverter box to fit the vent ducting, but it could be done with something as simple as a piece of cardboard or heck even some duct tape if I'm being honest. see 11:36 for details on that. The other option is to just find a dash from a car with ac, I found one on Facebook marketplace that came with all the ducting to hook it up for cheap, and hope to install it soon. Either way will work just fine! Good luck!

Dang that's some fancy stuff! I bet its nice and comfortable too!

@@brickheadgarage554 I’m getting there one step at a time, but it will be worth it in the long run

Old school all original always better👍👍👍👍👍👍

Yup! It drops right in!

As long as you can spare the time its really not so bad! And if you're worried about leaving the car in pieces, I'd try and split the job into smaller jobs instead of trying to do everything at once. You got this!

Thanks!!!

Thanks! Still some small things I'd like to tweak, but its so much nicer to have cool air in the summer!

Thanks so much!

Sounds like a sweet ride! I'm glad you enjoyed the video!

@@brickheadgarage554 I am curious if a scroll style compressor would work more efficiently with R12 or if it would need to be converted. I don’t think anyone ever used a scroll style back when R12 was common. I used a NOS R12 Harrison unit, and charged the system with R12 - for authenticity and performance. I would love to share pictures. Mine is a hard top 5spd white/red. I am like a kid when it comes to that car. I have had it since 1996, so don’t sell yours!

@@LS1LE That's awesome! Sounds like a sweet ride! Other than being prone to leaking, I haven't actually heard any bad things about the performance of the original R4 compressors, especially if you're using R12 like it was designed for. I'm sure it gets much colder than R134a, at least with the original condenser. Hopefully, I can get one of those fancy aftermarket parallel-flow condensers someday to bring it up to snuff. And don't worry, I have no plans of getting rid of this car, I love it!

I'm glad you like them, Thanks so much!

Which wire is it? I go over my wire tracing in Ep 3 and that may help you, luckily its not too complicated of a system, so its pretty easy just to pull back the cable loom and trace the colors

That should work out very well for you! Mine has been working without issue ever since I installed it in May, just gotta get around to upgrading that darn condenser!

@@brickheadgarage554 Not sure if you can, your fan is electric? But I installed a larger fan, mine's the engine driven fan. Aside from getting a fancy condensor, a fin comb will straighten fins. Relieved to hear you're pleased with the compressor, the R4 gm compressors are fragile and I've been through several, replacing them gets old. I've been trying to find a review on this alternative and saw yours then pulled the trigger. Thanks for doing this.

I finished installing mine last year end of summer. Flushed, vacummed and charged with 152a and PAG oil. The system seemed to work well, I agree at low speed it's not as good as higher speeds but this is my 1st experience with 152a so nothing to compare it to. The system seems to have held pressure well over winter and I'm looking forward to further testing this summer. Anyway, thanks for taking the leap and posting your results.