Insulating The Air Exchanger
Ford engineers, in their infinite wisdom, decided to put the air conditioning coil in the engine compartment and the heater core basically in the passenger’s compartment. This insane set up has resulted in producing somewhat cool air in the summer as the A/C had to try to chill the air in a hot engine compartment, inches away from the valve cover. The cheap and flimsy foil cover they came up to “insulate” the exchanger was laughable at best. It has been one of the things I wanted to upgrade ever since buying the truck new in 1987. With the motor out one last time, I decided to correct the long standing mistake.
Removing the air exchanger housing from the firewall was the first step towards this modification to insulate the unit in order to finally have cold A/C. Once it was on the bench, I began creating templates by laying heavy craft paper along the curves and contours of the interior surfaces. With the templates finished, it was kind of like creating a jigsaw puzzle where all of the pieces fit as tightly next to each other to conserve material. The roll of insulation, although fairly large, is also fairly expensive. So it was important to keep waste to a minimum. Once the layout was determined, a silver marker was used to transfer the design to the foam. To ensure the pieces were not misapplied, each piece was marked as was the location inside of the housing itself. Application was simple, just peel and stick. Using a wooden roller, the foam was pressed into the corners and crevices. After test fitting the housing with the coil and the blower fan, the joints were covered with aluminum tape to to ensure air flow would be as smooth as possible for maximum air flow.
All that remains is to finish the build and get the truck back on the road to find out how well the modification performs. I know you’re on pins and needles and as soon as she gets on the road, I’ll be back with an update. Till then, come back soon to see the progress.
