ARA Air Conditioning Unit

[Beams]

Just pulled this unit out of my car.

Anyone familiar with these? Dealer installed? I have a feeling this showed up late in the game when a previous owner swapped a bunch of parts from a 75 A Body.

 

[autoxcuda]

Dealer or some sort of aftermarket install.

There were more aftermarket companies doing this than just the dealer.

 

[Beams]

Dealer or some sort of aftermarket install.

There were more aftermarket companies doing this than just the dealer.

Fair enough. Not really planning on putting it back in. More of a curiosity than anything else. It was blowing a little cool when I had the car running.

 

[Cuprum-74]

Funny thing is, that is not much different from the aftermarket A/C units now like Vintage Air & Classic Auto Air etc.

 

[1WildRT]

The local Modesto ARA dealer was Mathias Automotive on Scenic just west of Coffee road... I should know... I worked there after school doing A/C installs (mostly on Chevy Trucks) back in 76-77 It's now Precision Automotive...

If I were you I would put it back... Cold air is nice on hot days here in the Valley...

 

[Beams]

The local Modesto ARA dealer was Mathias Automotive on Scenic just west of Coffee road... I should know... I worked there after school doing A/C installs (mostly on Chevy Trucks) back in 76-77 It's now Precision Automotive...

If I were you I would put it back... Cold air is nice on hot days here in the Valley...

View attachment 1716045048

Thanks for the history! Who knows. You may have been the original installer.

I’m going to stash it away with the slant 6 I pulled from the car. I drove the car with slant 6 and A/C installed for 2 summers. By the time it got so hot that the wing window wasn’t sufficient, I was boiling fuel and couldn’t drive the car anyway.

 

[1WildRT]

Do you still have the 65 in your sig picture? Is it the one that use to be parked off Orangeburg near Doctors Hospital for years?

 

[autoxcuda]

The local Modesto ARA dealer was Mathias Automotive on Scenic just west of Coffee road... I should know... I worked there after school doing A/C installs (mostly on Chevy Trucks) back in 76-77 It's now Precision Automotive...

If I were you I would put it back... Cold air is nice on hot days here in the Valley...

View attachment 1716045048

Wow!

Talk about some local insight

 

[Beams]

Do you still have the 65 in your sig picture? Is it the one that use to be parked off Orangeburg near Doctors Hospital for years?

Yep, that’s the car I’m working on.

How far back are you talking? The last tags on the car when I got it were from 2000. The story is that it’s a Turlock car. Two owners before my father-in-law got it.. I’ve had it for just over 4 years. Previous owner lived in Delhi—I’ll have to do some digging, but it’s been in the area for a long time!

Was originally yellow, too.

 

[67Dart273]

I loved my ARA. The previous owner of my then 70 440-6 car had installed one. NICE and SIMPLE. If you needed to do work it came out of there easy. Mine had a cast iron pulley and you pulled 3 bolts out of the pulley bolts on the balancer , added the new pulley and put longer bolts through. All clamp on "leaky" LOLOL hoses, R12 was cheap then!!!! Later, I swapped a 340 into the 70 440 car, and actually redrilled the compressor mount and managed to adapt the system to a small block!!!

 

[Demonracer]

Convert the system to R134 refrigerant along with a Sanden style compressor and a larger condenser. If it were mine, that's what I would do. Those older dealer installed AC units are a ton better than some of the stuff on the market today.

 

[1WildRT]

Yep, that’s the car I’m working on.

How far back are you talking? The last tags on the car when I got it were from 2000. The story is that it’s a Turlock car. Two owners before my father-in-law got it.. I’ve had it for just over 4 years. Previous owner lived in Delhi—I’ll have to do some digging, but it’s been in the area for a long time!

Was originally yellow, too.

The Dart I'm thinking of was off Orangeburg in the 1995-1998 time frame, Turquoise with a white half top, 273-4 & a 4spd... Cool little hot rod.. A good friend owns this one..

 

[67Dart273]

Convert the system to R134 refrigerant along with a Sanden style compressor and a larger condenser. If it were mine, that's what I would do. Those older dealer installed AC units are a ton better than some of the stuff on the market today.

Mine used a (think Ford like) York compressor. Doubt you could get parts for them now. Plus a Sanden is smaller. OP some of the outfits offer a bolt on Sanden conversion or IE just buy that part of the system they sell

 

[Charrlie_S]

"Back in the day", there were many companies that sold AC kits. In the 80's and 90's even many manufacturers had kits available for dealer installation. I used to go to the local Mitsubishi and Datsun dealers one or two days a week, and do their AC kit installs on new vehicles. Most could be completed in 2-3 hours.
Heck, even John Deere had a kit for their farm tractors. It used the old GM A6 long skinny compressor.
PS: The old "York" style compressor is still available new. Not the same company, the "rights" were bought by someone else.