Another thing I got to this weekend while Finn was asleep was to pull out the A/C ductwork under my dashboard. It was inoperable when I got the truck, although there was power to the blower fan. There was no compressor on the engine and the supply/return hoses had been cut just outside the firewall. Figuring it would be a number of years and several Lotto tickets before I’m able to buy an aftermarket A/C system, and because I’d like to get under the dash itself to replace bulbs and fix electrical gremlins, I decided to yank it out.
The vent bar came out easily (in part because one of the bolts was already missing) and the PO had thoughtfully installed quick connects on all of the wiring. Once that was out, I tackled the condenser unit under the passenger’s side. This was trickier because my glove box latch is hopelessly broken, so I jimmied that open, removed the box liner, and pulled the door off. There are four bolts holding it onto the firewall, three in the wheel well and one in the engine bay. They all came off so easily I had to look around to see if anyone was pranking me.
Once that was disconnected and the hoses underneath came off, the whole assembly lifted right out. It’s definitely seen better days. The picture here doesn’t show five pounds of dog hair and mud caked into the rear of the condenser unit.
Now I can get underneath and sort out the wiring, replace all the bulbs, and (possibly) even pull the purple dash off and replace it with the black one I refinished four years ago. But I’ll have to be careful not to anger the Scout electrical gods.