I am betting that there are others out there that, like me, are decent DIYers but have never dealt with air. This is a writeup of what I learned doing my York OBA setup.
Reasources:
Lots of info
http://www.jedi.com/obiwan/jeep/yorkair.html
List of donor vehicles
http://www.links4jeeps.com/writeups/york/York_Donors.php
parts/fittings/hose/etc.
http://www.mcmaster.com/
Parts/hard to find custom fittings
http://www.onboardair.com
Yorks
www.ebay.com
Finding a york:
At first I tried calling wrecking yards and asking if they had an AC compressor for any of the vehicles on the donor list. This didn't work at all. Very few places kept such old vehicles and if they did the AC unit was already gone. I think this is because everyone who is looking for a York starts the same way I did, calling yards. Eventually I heard of a yard that does not inventory parts. They will tell you if they have a certain year of car on the lot but that is it. You must go and look yourself and do all part removal yourself. Using such a yard I quickly found a york and saw several others while I was there.
Mounting the York:
I used the bracket and Pulley from Slee w/o issue. Getting all 4 holes on the bracket to line up with the block holes can be hard. I was able to do it without too much trouble by using a C clamp across the top of the bracket to stress it just enough to make things fit.
Belt:
Once mounted I found a 3/8 wide, 37 inch circumference belt fit perfectly. It was not loose enough to fit over the pulleys w/o using a screw driver to help it along but once on the pulley the York is mounted about 1 inch up from its lowest position. About right.
Mating your lines to the York:
The next hurdle is getting your air hose fitted to the funky fittings that come on the York. The custom fittings from Kilby (onboardair.com) will save you a lot of time here but they are expensive.
I didn't want to spend the money so I went a different route. I realized I was never going to find something to fit so I went back to the wrecking yard to get the T fittings off the vehicle the York came off. I then took that T fitting to the hardware store and found that the output of those fittings are not standard either. At this point a trip to a hardware store specializing in AC might have produced results. Instead, I went back to the wrecking yard again and bought the first few inches of hose that fit onto those T fittings from the donor vehicle. That hose started out as Aluminum piping. I found that 5/8 hose fit over that AL piping nicely so I got some of that and then got hose barbs for 5/8 piping to 3/8 NPT. From there I adapted NPT sizes to get to what I needed. So I got there in the end but it involved lots of fittings.
I have it on good authority that if you get the Flange style York head then 8-AN flange fittings may fit. I had the Tube-O style head.
Oil/water separator:
After I ordered all my parts I continued to read up on York installs. The more I read the more I realized I needed an oil/water separator to keep the air tank clear of same. Yorks tend to put out oil. There is a mod (which I initially planned to do) that can mitigate this but some still have oil issues even after the mod and some say the mod isn't a good idea. Besides, compressors always produce water because uncompressed air can hold more water than compressed air. My recommendation is to plan on a separator.
Size of Hose:
I mail ordered 1/4 ID hose/fittings for air distribution. Once I got it and started to hook it all up I realized how small 1/4 ID is. If I had it to do over I think I would go with 3/8 ID hose.
Hose Clamps:
I thought that tubing would stay put on the barbs of the fittings without clamps. I was wrong. Every hose-barb fitting needs a hose clamp. Plan accordingly.
Air Manifold:
I bought a 4 port manifold with 3/4 center to center ports. That means each port is 3/4 from the other...so each screw on port item can only be half that size before it interferes with the thing next to it. Guess what, thats virtually no space at all. I made it work by putting gage and pressure switch on the outsides, plugging one port and using another for the safety valve. I can only make it work if I put everything on in a very specific order (gage first, turn it sideways, then safety valve (temporarily removing top ring so I can rotate it w/o problems), then plug, etc. My advice would be to spend a little extra here and get a manifold that has lots of room between ports. The ones from Kilby or Slee look good.
Threaded parts:
I know brass tends to gall so I applied anti-seize to all threads. After it was all together and pressurized I found I had leaks everywhere. I started tightening fittings but in the end I found the only thing that worked was to take all fittings apart and use Teflon tape to put it together. Teflon takes the place of the anti-seize and is much cleaner all around. Once I did this to ALL threads then I finally had a sealed system.
I have yet to mount the 3 Gal air tank but I will edit this if I learn anything new doing that.
This post is intended to help others by providing solutions to the problems I found. There may be better ways and better information than I posted here. If you know such things, post them below for others. Thanks.
Reasources:
Lots of info
http://www.jedi.com/obiwan/jeep/yorkair.html
List of donor vehicles
http://www.links4jeeps.com/writeups/york/York_Donors.php
parts/fittings/hose/etc.
http://www.mcmaster.com/
Parts/hard to find custom fittings
http://www.onboardair.com
Yorks
www.ebay.com
Finding a york:
At first I tried calling wrecking yards and asking if they had an AC compressor for any of the vehicles on the donor list. This didn't work at all. Very few places kept such old vehicles and if they did the AC unit was already gone. I think this is because everyone who is looking for a York starts the same way I did, calling yards. Eventually I heard of a yard that does not inventory parts. They will tell you if they have a certain year of car on the lot but that is it. You must go and look yourself and do all part removal yourself. Using such a yard I quickly found a york and saw several others while I was there.
Mounting the York:
I used the bracket and Pulley from Slee w/o issue. Getting all 4 holes on the bracket to line up with the block holes can be hard. I was able to do it without too much trouble by using a C clamp across the top of the bracket to stress it just enough to make things fit.
Belt:
Once mounted I found a 3/8 wide, 37 inch circumference belt fit perfectly. It was not loose enough to fit over the pulleys w/o using a screw driver to help it along but once on the pulley the York is mounted about 1 inch up from its lowest position. About right.
Mating your lines to the York:
The next hurdle is getting your air hose fitted to the funky fittings that come on the York. The custom fittings from Kilby (onboardair.com) will save you a lot of time here but they are expensive.
I didn't want to spend the money so I went a different route. I realized I was never going to find something to fit so I went back to the wrecking yard to get the T fittings off the vehicle the York came off. I then took that T fitting to the hardware store and found that the output of those fittings are not standard either. At this point a trip to a hardware store specializing in AC might have produced results. Instead, I went back to the wrecking yard again and bought the first few inches of hose that fit onto those T fittings from the donor vehicle. That hose started out as Aluminum piping. I found that 5/8 hose fit over that AL piping nicely so I got some of that and then got hose barbs for 5/8 piping to 3/8 NPT. From there I adapted NPT sizes to get to what I needed. So I got there in the end but it involved lots of fittings.
I have it on good authority that if you get the Flange style York head then 8-AN flange fittings may fit. I had the Tube-O style head.
Oil/water separator:
After I ordered all my parts I continued to read up on York installs. The more I read the more I realized I needed an oil/water separator to keep the air tank clear of same. Yorks tend to put out oil. There is a mod (which I initially planned to do) that can mitigate this but some still have oil issues even after the mod and some say the mod isn't a good idea. Besides, compressors always produce water because uncompressed air can hold more water than compressed air. My recommendation is to plan on a separator.
Size of Hose:
I mail ordered 1/4 ID hose/fittings for air distribution. Once I got it and started to hook it all up I realized how small 1/4 ID is. If I had it to do over I think I would go with 3/8 ID hose.
Hose Clamps:
I thought that tubing would stay put on the barbs of the fittings without clamps. I was wrong. Every hose-barb fitting needs a hose clamp. Plan accordingly.
Air Manifold:
I bought a 4 port manifold with 3/4 center to center ports. That means each port is 3/4 from the other...so each screw on port item can only be half that size before it interferes with the thing next to it. Guess what, thats virtually no space at all. I made it work by putting gage and pressure switch on the outsides, plugging one port and using another for the safety valve. I can only make it work if I put everything on in a very specific order (gage first, turn it sideways, then safety valve (temporarily removing top ring so I can rotate it w/o problems), then plug, etc. My advice would be to spend a little extra here and get a manifold that has lots of room between ports. The ones from Kilby or Slee look good.
Threaded parts:
I know brass tends to gall so I applied anti-seize to all threads. After it was all together and pressurized I found I had leaks everywhere. I started tightening fittings but in the end I found the only thing that worked was to take all fittings apart and use Teflon tape to put it together. Teflon takes the place of the anti-seize and is much cleaner all around. Once I did this to ALL threads then I finally had a sealed system.
I have yet to mount the 3 Gal air tank but I will edit this if I learn anything new doing that.
This post is intended to help others by providing solutions to the problems I found. There may be better ways and better information than I posted here. If you know such things, post them below for others. Thanks.
Last edited:
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