rear A/C for my LX450 (1 Viewer)

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I saw a thread on here about how non- U.S. spec landcruisers had rear A/C and some people had changed it on theirs. I cant find it now!!! I will do anything, no matter how ugly to get some cold air blowin for the backseat. Am I wrong in thinking that the rear floor vent behind the center console can be modified upstream to get some cold air? I live in Phoenix and its gonna get hot pretty soon.
 
I saw a thread on here about how non- U.S. spec landcruisers had rear A/C and some people had changed it on theirs. I cant find it now!!! I will do anything, no matter how ugly to get some cold air blowin for the backseat. Am I wrong in thinking that the rear floor vent behind the center console can be modified upstream to get some cold air? I live in Phoenix and its gonna get hot pretty soon.

I would upgrade the bungee cords if you plan to wheel
window AC.jpg
 
LOL

Wow...you can hardly even tell it's been modified ;)). As far as I know no one has put rear A/C in the U.S...at least I have never seen it.
airlaird
 
I saw a thread on here about how non- U.S. spec landcruisers had rear A/C and some people had changed it on theirs. I cant find it now!!! I will do anything, no matter how ugly to get some cold air blowin for the backseat. Am I wrong in thinking that the rear floor vent behind the center console can be modified upstream to get some cold air? I live in Phoenix and its gonna get hot pretty soon.

This puzzle drived me crazy since I bought my cruiser.

I searched all kind of self contained evaporators like the ones used in farm tractors etc, and I found some slim units which could be fixed on the roof over the 2nd row but it should be a major pain the ass to end with a clean and nice roof.

Other option was to use the rear unit from a 93-94 Nissan Quest but it would only provide air to the third row.

Since mine has the console refrigerator, I compared my cooling capacity against cruisers without the console and it´s clear the OEM compressor is not enough to drive both front and console refrigerator evaporators so even on my case a bigger compressor would be required.

If I were you, I would heavy tint the third row sliding panels. and even remove the roof, add some insulation and reinstall the roof.

You should add the optional OEM aux electric fan (or a way cheaper generic ) in front of the condenser, that will help increase your cooling when driving slow and the belt driven fan is not pulling enough fresh air through the condenser.
 
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Am I wrong in thinking that the rear floor vent behind the center console can be modified upstream to get some cold air? I live in Phoenix and its gonna get hot pretty soon.

That vent in the bottom rear of the console makes a hard turn and goes into the stand-alone heater/blower under the passenger seat. No way to get AC into that.

After looking at the OEM setup, it looks very, very, very ugly to me.
 
well I came to a conclusion after reading the above posts and all the links to previous posts on this subject. SCREW THE BACKSEAT PASSENGERS!!! Thats way more work and expense for me, I'd rather just let it idle and waste gas to cool it down, and stop frequently for cold beverages. Interesting reading though, some of you guys on here really know your stuff!!!
 
What about just making a custom duct off of the front vents into the back somehow? Sounds like it would be a lot of work, in order to do it cleanly, but would that work (of course at a reduced effectiveness....)?
 
well I came to a conclusion after reading the above posts and all the links to previous posts on this subject. SCREW THE BACKSEAT PASSENGERS!!! Thats way more work and expense for me, I'd rather just let it idle and waste gas to cool it down, and stop frequently for cold beverages. Interesting reading though, some of you guys on here really know your stuff!!!

Heavy tint the sliding windows and add a generic aux electric fan in front of the condenser and you will notice a big improvement without expending much money and is something that can be done in a day's work.

Because heavy tinting the rear window will impair vision when backing, I found and installed rolling curtains specially made for vehicles which have small round perforations on all the fabric, allowing straight vision through them when I look from my rear view mirror but they block the angled sun rays. If I drive at night I just roll up the curtains and you don't have any idea how they help cool the rear cargo area and by the way my kids enjoy better their movies from the roof video monitor because the heavy tinted slide windows and rolling curtains combination make the rear zone a lot darker. Also a cooler rear area allows the 12 volt refrigerator compressor to cycle less.

We have a tourist destination island with nice 4 wheeling routes, accessed through ferryboat , and in season there is a waiting line to take it, that could take 5 to 6 hours under a scorching sun at the port until the ferry arrive with no shaded places to stand outside so we had to stay inside the cruiser with the air condition on !!!!!! I put sun shades on the front windshield and front passengers windows and of course waiting under this extreme hot weather is were I tax my engine cooling system, air condition and alternator at their most (and waste a lot of gas).
 
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Heavy tint the sliding windows and add a generic aux electric fan in front of the condenser and you will notice a big improvement without expending much money and is something that can be done in a day's work.

Because heavy tinting the rear window will impair vision when backing, I found and installed rolling curtains specially made for vehicles which have small round perforations on all the fabric, allowing straight vision through them when I look from my rear view mirror but they block the angled sun rays. If I drive at night I just roll up the curtains and you don't have any idea how they help cool the rear cargo area and by the way my kids enjoy better their movies from the roof video monitor because the heavy tinted slide windows and rolling curtains combination make the rear zone a lot darker. Also a cooler rear area allows the 12 volt refrigerator compressor to cycle less.

We have a tourist destination island with nice 4 wheeling routes, accessed through ferryboat , and in season there is a waiting line to take it, that could take 5 to 6 hours under a scorching sun at the port until the ferry arrive with no shaded places to stand outside so we had to stay inside the cruiser with the air condition on !!!!!! I put sun shades on the front windshield and front passengers windows and of course waiting under this extreme hot weather is were I tax my engine cooling system, air condition and alternator at their most (and waste a lot of gas).

Holy Crap, am I reading right that you are idling the rig for 5 to 6 hours at a time with the A/C on in scorching hot summer temps? :eek::eek::eek:
 
We have a lot of those aftermarket rear aircon whatnots. They install well behing the rear seats but give rear passengers a headache on long trips. The cold air blowing on the back of the head...

The local shops charge a mint for the job and parts so I made do with tint and a back up sensor. One of these days I should look at the installation of those. It's a clean job but I don't know the details.


Kalawang
 
Holy ****, am I reading right that you are idling the rig for 5 to 6 hours at a time with the A/C on in scorching hot summer temps? :eek::eek::eek:

Yep, common waiting time is 3 hours but I had to do it once for such a long time, because the fast speed ferryboat for which we had paid reservations had 2 of it´s 4 engines damaged and had to travel from the island to the mainland so slow that swimming would be faster :crybaby: And it take us close to 5 hours to reach our destination, of course the ferry bar had enough :beer:

I know it sound horrible and punishing but yes, the cruiser handled that as a champ, ours have a manual throttle knob so I raised the RPM to about 1000 RPM so my alternator could provide a bit more juice to power all the accesories plus the Engel refrigerator which was full of food and drinks. The dock area is completely wide open and we got enough wind so I guess it was not so bad for the cruiser, but I saw many others turning off and closing their vehicles and walk for a couple of miles to a place which had tables and chairs to wait but my kids didn´t like much the idea, so we watched a couple of movies and sleeped the rest in our cool cruiser.

Now you understand why our top trim cruisers came standard with the refrigerator console, we don´t have on our highways a plaza every 20 miles !!!!
 
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