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Has anyone changed their 79 or so A/C compressor to a sanden? What other changes and does it work well. I do have a full jug of r 12 so I could go back to stock. Id really like a conversion kit if possible.
Vintage Air kits use a Sanden 508 compressor. I’m sure you probably don’t want their full kit, but you can see what else they do to them to make it work better than stock.
Last edited by Piersonpie; Jun 11, 2026 at 10:06 PM.
Yes, many of us have. You'll need a set of mounting brackets. A new belt and some custom made hoses.
The Sanden takes 1/4 of the power to operate. Huge improvement. Huge.
If your going to run 134. A parallel flow condenser is also highly recommended.
Lots of air-con threads on here.
looking forward to your swap! pretty sure you can run r12 as is with sanden.. when mine takes a dump i will try sanden r12.. be good to confirm this.. seems should be a compressor swap and that's it would be nice if existing did not put metal in system...
agree , man that r4 sucks power and cycling... but its cold! i also have several pounds r12
on my 79 manual there is no kick up for ac so i go from 900 rpm idle to 700..
Classic Auto air Is a division of another company that closed classic.
All these threads are years old
. I think the brackets can be found. Worst case scenario, I suppose I could go to a serpentine system.
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