AC Rebuild & 134A Conversion - Part 3

In the evenings this week after work, I spent a little time daily working on the air conditioning system.

The Evapo-Rust did an excellent job on the upper condenser mounts.  They looked like perfect bare metal without any evidence of rust.  I expect with the light surface rust on the part and the lack of paint that this must have originally been installed as a bare metal part.  I then painted them with VHT engine primer (SP148) and then VHT engine enamel in flat black (SP130).  I'm going to use flat black on pieces which are not visible (like these) or others that I want to fade into the background rather than be prominent in the engine bay.

The next step was to remove the original compressor and associated brackets.  It appears someone wire wheeled the main mounting bracket but did nothing more an put it back on the car.  I soaked the lower bracket, nuts, and bolts in Evapo-Rust to get them all cleaned up.  The large bracket was too large to fully soak so I put in some time with 220 grit sandpaper to clean it up before coating it with VHT engine primer (SP148) and then VHT engine enamel in flat black (SP130).

The compressor in the car had the following Ford label on the back of it so I expect it is original to the car.  I'm not sure if it has any value or is worth keeping.  I don't expect to clean it up any but I'll probably store it in the attic just in case I want it for some reason later. 

I also soaked the accumulator/dryer bracket portion by portion due to its odd size in Evapo-Rust.  I then coat it VHT engine primer (SP148) but since it was originally satin black (along with the accumulator), I painted it in the VHT Satin Black color (SP139).  I also painted the two little nuts that mount it to the firewall with the same paint.  This bracket was the hardest to paint as it wanted to fish eye because of something on the bracket, that I couldn't see, that was seemingly hard to get off but it turned out good in the end.

There are little clips, three in total, that are used on the A/C lines.  They line connections should not come apart but it seems they are there to help avoid that.  Two were painted black and one was natural finish.  I ended up stripping the paint from two of them using some spray on paint stripper.  I then painted them like the rest with the VHT primer and flat black paint.

Lastly, I cleaned the power steering pump slightly and considered cleaning the exposed section of the engine block.  However, I think that would soon get out of hand and spiral into a longer project.  I'll do a quick clean with some Super Clean and a scotchbrite pad and call it good.  I'll then start work on putting everything back together.