The air conditioning on my 06 STR wasn’t working when I got my car. I noticed the front of the compressor was oily with the yellow dye indicator over the surface of the compressor indicating it had a leak. I tried recharging the AC. But it would lose pressure relatively quickly. So I bought a used compressor off eBay but it was from a V-6 model which I discovered had a different mounting bracket built into the compressor as shown below.

So I bought a new compressor. Got some oil Pag 100. A new desiccant bag bag. Swapped in the new components which is a major pain in the *** on STR because you need to drop the steering rack remove the left motor mounts and bracket and jack the motor up and then fight with the cooling lines that run behind the air conditioning compressor and order to remove it. Because of the tight clearances in that area it is hard as hell to get the old Compressor out. There is just barely enough room to get your hand in there to do anything. So removing some of the compressor bolts are almost impossible as well as removing the bolts for the motor mount bracket. There was a lot of cussing.

I did the modification to the compressor valve as shown below. I am getting very nice vent temperatures good I was reading 42° F on a day that was 88° F outside. The only thing I noticed was that at idle my high pressure gauge was bouncing around a lot and I believe this is due to The compressor valve mod that I did. However the pressure becomes steady as soon as you give it a little bit of gas.

when I remove the old compressor I drained out the fluid to see how much was in it however I barely got a couple of drips out of it. I ended up adding about 3 ounces of oil to the compressor and about half an ounce to the high pressure line going to the condenser. It was really hard to determine how much oil to put back in the system since I could Not flush the system without removing the expansion valve which is a royal pain in the *** so I did not do that. Oh well. Here are some pics. If anyone needs an AC compressor for a V6 I have one in good condition that I’ll let go for the $90 that I paid for it.

Used v6 compressor I got from Ebay

There is not much room to work on the STR. Having a lift made it easier but still it was difficult

V6 compressor on top. Orig v8 compressor on bottom. You can see the mounting bosses are longer on the V6 comp

Differences between the compressors

New compressor from Murray

Oil drained from old compressor was not much.

 

More pics

Changed the valve spring to behind the piston as described in the compressor mod

Easy mod

changing out dryer bag

Dropped steering rack and removed motor mount bracket

Not much room to work

Got the new compressor in finally. Lots of cussing and forcing

 

More pics. Also had to remove the drivers side O2 sensor

Jacking up the engine

Good pressues.

Good vent telps for 88 deg f day

 

Good fix....on jackstands it would be near impossible....luckily my entire ac system including evaporator and compressor was redone by previous owner to the tune of 3500 dollars..i have the papers from an outfit in mission viejo....thank goodness

 

I could not imagine trying this on jack stands. With the amount of attempts to pull out the old one moving front to back, side to side, top or bottom trying to wedge the old one old would kill you! Even with the lift it took several hours of finagling. And its easily a $3500 job if u had to deal with the expansion valve!

 

they did exp valve....that is why they went ahead and changed evap while they were in there... according to thier notes it needed cleaning bad, so new one was best option

 

Nice work getting the car to balance up on top of that post. Personally, I'd prefer a little more support when working underneath a car, but to each his own...

 

You had me going there, briefly!

 

I changed the AC compressor on my 2005 STR using ramps and jack stands in my drive way. I did not touch the rack. Yes it's very tight and I would not do it again unless I had too!
Undid both motor mounts and jacked the engine up as high as I could using a piece of plywood under the cast Al. oil pan. I did remove the PS pump as I wanted to flush the fluid as much as possible.

Here is the thread;
STR AC Compressor Replacement

Oops! I also post as Tbird6 and I saw you had posted to that old thread too!

Your lift looks great too!! If I did not have mine I think my car repair days would be over?
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yes that post helped a lot. Weird my 06 has a sheet metal pan and not cast. Anyways yes the lift is a life saver. Ive wanted one my whole life and finally got one used last year. It was made in the 80s and has 1/2” steel U channels for the carriages instead of the cheap chinese rolled steel channels. Each column weighs about 800 lbs vs 200lb for the chinese lifts! We learned that the hard way- while taking it down from the dealership I bought it from. It almost killed the three of us once we got the Column leaned over.

I really need some tall jack stand for when I need to do things like jack up a motor. Id hate to throw the car off the lift!

but man is it handy having a lift!

 

the shop foreman on the couch looks pretty relaxed....easy to work for

 

I know what you mean! Only problem I have had was with a large Ford F450 dually. We took the rear dual's off and it removed so much weight from the rear that I could push the rear up and rock the truck! Had to lower it and put the duals in the bed. Lifts have gotten much cheaper with all the chinese stuff and about +90% of the lifts are imported. Including mine.





But I got the stand your talking about for just that reason.

Tall Lift Stand
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