I plan on doing this as a weekend project, it doesnt sound very complicated. For the A/C, all I do is take off the compressor and bracket. Then remove all the hoses coming off it and plug the holes left from the hoses, anything else I'm missing? The system is completely empty.

For the rats nest, I just rip it all out, all the little colored things and the vacuum lines coming off them. Then plug the holes left. Anything else?

Is there anything hard about removing the smog pump? My cats are gutted and the hose coming off the cat is already removed, so can I just unbolt it and pull it off?

Also, what is the best/cheapest way to plug the holes in the a/c and emissions?

I'm just looking for conformation if this is the right way to go about all this, or for someone to smack me for being stupid and tell me the right way to do it, either way, any help is appreciated.

Thanks,
Matt

 

Holes left behing by my A/C hoses being removed from their firewall connections are still open a month later. Figured since nothing is using that part of the system for anything anymore, why plug them?

As far as the rats nest, haven't gotten that far yet.

 

Remember to remove the condensor from in front of the radiator when you yank the ac.

 

Thanks for the replies.

Anything else I'm missing?

And what is the best way to plug the holes from removing the emissions?

 

not really, thats about it. Just have some golf teas handy to plug any of the hoses.

 

Just noticed that no one mentioned anything about the air pump, I thought there was a second belt that you had to run to keep one from squeaking? Anyone know the size of the belt and where to run it?

 

Do you guys seriously plug the hoses with golf tees?

Is there anything else?

 

Do a search; the rats nest question has been covered 10000 times.

 

I already have searched, didnt really come up with what I was looking for. Never said what exactly to use as plugs, and I've never seen exactly what belt I need to add to keep it from squeaking when I remove the air pump.

 

Use rubber vacuum caps to plug the vacuum inlets on the carb, available at any autoshop.

Search for "dual alternator pulley" and you'll answer your belt question.

 

To elaborate - The problem is that the belt slips on the water pump pulley because of a lack of contact area. You can't run a second belt of the same size because there isn't anywhere for it to go on the alternator pulley. You need to buy a dual sheeve alt pulley to do things that way.

However check out the most recent thread about dual pulleys, and I posted a pic of a smaller "yoohoo" belt you can run. I don't know much about this - not a pic of my car.

Personally, I've never had a problem with the water pump slipping, but I run an electric fan...

 

Thanks for the help everyone, now I can actually do this without feeling like I'm gonna f*ck up my car.

 

I've removed my pump and run with one belt (with the stock fan). I've heard of the slipping problem but haven't noticed it myself.

On the subject of Rat's Nest, I've tried to remove mine twice and both times I ran into trouble. I run a MSD and in both cases, after removing the nest, I lost my leading spark. Never could figure it out - but the leading plugs got extremely hot and I couldn't pick up a signal with a timing light on the leading plug wire. Car lost a lot of power and I burnt out one MSD. Funny thing was it ran real smooth - go figure! On the second try, I turned the car off after not being able to pick up a signal again and saved frying my new MSD.

I never posted this before in fear of stirring up the "DO A SEARCH" crowd. But this is wierd and it pisses me off that I can't pull that mess of vac leaks. Anyone else running MSD without the nest and can you tell me WTF's wrong with how I doing it???