Date:         Tue, 7 Mar 2006 15:50:11 -0800
Reply-To:     roger sisler <rogersisler2000@YAHOO.COM>
Sender:       Vanagon Mailing List <vanagon@gerry.vanagon.com>
From:         roger sisler <rogersisler2000@YAHOO.COM>
Subject:      For anyone that may want to put a SD709 in a 83.5-85
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=iso-8859-1

Hello there.I was at the junqeyard today and looked closer at a Landrover Discovery A/C set up. This rover in particular was of the 1989 persuasion. It had the SD 709 compressor. Earlier Discoverys had the SD510. 9 cubic inches and 10 cubic inches,respectively. I think most Discoverys ,up till recently, have this SD709.Of all the vehicles I have ever looked at,the Discovery has a compressor set up that is closer to the vanagon set up, than any vehicle.

  Upon this closer inspection ,I discovered that the '89 Discovery had an adapter on the rear of the SD709 that allowed it to "hook up" to screw on hoses.The type that early vanagons have. Regular vanagon SD 709 compressors have a push on type connection for the hoses. It looks like one pushes this adapter into the 709's hose holes and then insert in a single attaching bolt. Like the late vanagon attachment. Only after this is done, the hoses just screw onto the adapter plate.

  This adapter looks very transferable to the early vanagon. The SD709 is also desirable as it does have more cubic inch dislacement than the origional SD508 (8.4 cubic inches), and 7 cylinders as opposed to 5 . These two extra cylinders are supposed to give smoother operation, with less vibration. The SD 508 on my  85 vanagon does viberate,but the cool air makes up for this annoyance.Why not have both cool air and smooth operation? If your plans are for compressor replacemenat this summer, do consider the 709.

  To use a SD 709 on the early WBX, a compressor mount from a late vanagon may be necessary. Never checked before, but swapping this mount is not a big issue.With the compressor mount ,and the adapter plate from a Landrover Discovery, the SD 709 will bolt right up.The hoses shouldnt need modification.The concern is the proper thread size.I havent unhooked the hoses from the Discovery to check, and I would try doing that to actually match up the threads,first(not hard either). They look like a match to me.The threads on the SD compressors are SAE, and not metric.The nuts use SAE wrenches too. Not metric. I think this is because adaption of A/C to  foreign vehicles, in the early years of mobile A/C , was done with General Motors off the shelf components. At least on stuff like Jags and Rolls Royce (Im talking 1950's or 1960's).I think many manufacturers also used american automatic transmissions in the early years of offering an automatic trans.Well, thats it. Another option to
 consider, and seems very doable.




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