Oklahoma Auto Air

July 26, 2014May 16, 2023

Garage Day – July 26, 2014 (Post #507) 7/26/2014

It was another hot Saturday in Central Oklahoma. The temperature made it to 102 F in Norman. Even with the temps as nasty as that we don’t stop work because we might get a little sticky and sweaty. We just turned on the fans and opened up the doors.

The Evil German Dude had us all over for some electrical fun. I know you’re thinking, Land Rover…Electric…sweet! Well not this weekend. The modifications were for Magnum Mike and Paparazzi Ford. Both of them had some seriously unimpressive factory wiring.

First was Magnum Mike’s Dodge Magnum. The work was to upgrade the ground. On this model of Magnum the battery is located in the trunk. That’s Mike sitting and sweating in the back of the very impressively modified Magnum. It is a true hot rod. He drove us to lunch one day. I’ve never been so scared and excited since Eric Kammerlocher took me for a spin in his Corvette back in the 1980’s.

The standard from the factory ground wire was a very small wire maybe 8 AWG. Compared to a normal battery cable the ground is about a fourth of the size it should be. The battery terminals are a simple flat metal. Not nearly the beefy terminals EGD uses normally.

You can see the flat metal and small wire in this image.

So the plan was to swap out the cables. EGD doesn’t do anything “half-assed”. The new cables were 2/0. Yes…two aught.

This wire chart should give you a great comparison.

We tease EGD but he knows his electrics. He has all the tools and always has the fittings, connectors, and heat shrink wire just about anything. The hydraulic crimping tool is pretty impressive too. So when you hear me talking about upgrading my battery cables you know why I am taking the Range Rover over to the evil lair.

The crimping dies had to be modified. Here EGD makes another minor correction to the tool’s die.

You can see in the next picture that they got the cables in place and the battery strapped back in.

Paparazzi Ford brought his Jeep Commander over with a very persnickety start problem. Basically something was wrong with the battery cables that would disable the vehicle. He would futz with it, the Jeep would start for a few days then quit him again.

He drove to EGD’s evil lair but when his turn came up the truck would not start. He popped the bonnet and I simply twisted the positive battery cable just a bit and the Commander started. Being as Jeep is now owned by Chrysler/Dodge the same type of battery terminals are being used.

Upon further inspection it turned out to be a very corroded connector. Swapping the terminals out had to be done. Here the crimping tool is used to marry the cables to the terminal.

Heat shrink is moved into place.

And here the heat gun heats the shrink wrap.

I couldn’t stay longer. JagGuy promised to take a look at my air conditioning. As you have no doubt read or have seen in my video blog my A/C is out. I’ve been chasing fully functional air conditioning in my Range Rover for years.

So JagGuy mentioned at lunch on Friday that he had a freon sniffer. Such a handy device.

He was keen on my idea to swap the AC compressor for a more common unit from a Chevy. The hoses would need to be custom-made. Before making all the effort to reinvent the system he said we should find out what has failed. Is the hoses? Is it the compressor? Is the radiator leaking? The only way to find out was to test for leaks.

I didn’t take a picture of the sniffer in action its sensor is an audio one. We sniffed the system and found that the front seal on the compressor had failed.

JagGuy suggested I go to the company that bought out Oklahoma Auto Air. They do all manner of compressors and hoses. The compressor on the Range Rover is basically a Sanden 709. So next week I’m going to drop by their shop and get the details. Hopefully I’ll have some air conditioning the week after I get back from my 25th wedding anniversary trip.

The weather is going to cool off this next week so my daily commute won’t be the 35 minute drive in an oven. Mrs. JagGuy has told JagGuy that she wants to drive a Land Rover Discovery II. They are looking for a good one. I can’t wait for them to go with us on a jaunt.

EGD is working with a company that has some pretty cool lighting solutions. I’m looking at them for some possible trail lighting. I’ll get back to that when I investigate further.

And in other news…he was only kidding about buying a Dodge.

Thanks for reading and Happy Rovering.

July 27, 2009May 15, 2023

AWESOME! Not really. (Post #152) 7/27/2009

So I ventured to my good friend’s garage this weekend to get a quick AC charge. And you guessed it…it wouldn’t charge. Compressor is gone…again. I was slightly confused about how long ago I had replaced it. 2005. I thought at most a couple of years. Bad news is Oklahoma Auto Air is out of business now. They have been bought out.

So its time to do some more research and find a compressor and a dryer. RangeRovers.net has a great section on air conditioning upgrades. Go check it out before you start buying.

I punted on the viscous coupling replacement. I’m going to do it in two weeks. Hopefully my buddy will have fixed his rack. If not, I’m going to do it in the OkieRover home garage. Which means I’m doing it on my back. Not my favorite working position. The temperature on Saturday in the shade on my front porch hit 104 (F). As you can imagine that is not a comfortable temp to be busting out any projects in the garage.

August 15th, 2005 (Post #62)

August 15th, 2005
More updates.
I fixed the Archive files. They were really screwed up.

Ignition
Had trouble with the ignition this past week. With my back being in it’s current very screwed up state it has been difficult to get in and out of any car. The MRI says I have an L3 L4 compression with pressure on my nerve root. Very painful by the way, the pain feels like my right hip is dislocated. L4 L5 is torn and something is wrong with L5 S1 too. The biggest worry is the first one. With that said I finally figured out that if I put my head in first and then climb in I don’t have to bend my back as much. But this caused me to bump, with my knee, the steering column.

This caused the already troublesome connection on the back of the ignition switch to be in a mostly unconnected state. It would start if I held the key right and jiggled the column plastic. But I had no accessories, lights, or much else.

To fix it I took some time before one of RovErica’s softball games to take the column off and fix the ignition plug more snuggly to the switch. I used two zip ties and just tightened them up to snug the plug to the back. It worked better than I thought it would have. You no longer have to double turn the ignition switch to get the BWB started and the radio and all the accessories work without fault.

Loosing oil
I am loosing some oil past the pan. JagGuy warned me not to tighten and thus
crush the cork gasket too much. But I must have done that. I will need to schedule
a new gasket on my next oil change.

Coolant
The past few mornings the low coolant light has been blinking when I start up. I haven’t had time to check the level but will need to do that tomorrow morning, if I’m not running late to work.

Complaints
My wife complained the other day when I was driving her home that the heat on the passenger side floor board was unbareable. I will have to see what happened there. It has all the padding still, maybe it slipped down. Who knows? I may just get piece of heat pad for below the pad just for fun.

Air Conditioning
Well the AC is no longer working. I got a black light out and sure enough the compressor is toast. Lots of leaks. So I broke down and ordered one. I saw the prices at all the regular places. Atlantic British, Rovers North and British Pacific. None of them could come close to the price of
Oklahoma Auto Air. I bought a new compressor for $295. They had to order it from a supplier because it wasn’t in stock but they had it the next day. JagGuy has used them for years. I will probably have them make my new hoses too. The prices of which were cheaper than the online catalogs too.

They quoted me a price per foot and a price for each end. The exact numbers escape me as of this entry but I’ll give you the details when I’m done.

Tell Don Murphy Eric Stephens from OkieRover recommended you. There will be more
in my write up on the Tech Tips page.