A couple nights ago I was remembering going to see “The Wiz” when we lived in Washington State. In case your curious, I thought about it because a song from the soundtrack played on my MP3 player. Anyway, I distinctly remember going to that movie in my dad’s old Datsun truck. A truck with no airconditioning. I remember us driving around in that truck with the windows down ALL THE TIME to get some airflow going. Fortunately we lived in Washington State so it’s not like it was ever sweltering there, but thinking about that truck made me grateful that I have car A/C now that I live in South Carolina! I could NOT imagine living through a SC summer without it.
When we lived in NJ the air conditioning compressor went out on my Ford Explorer but I was able to get that fixed. So far I have yet to need any work on my current car (knock on wood). I think it’s the compressors that often need fixing, because a friend of mine recently had her Honda ac compressor fixed as well. I guess they do the brunt of the work in cooling down a car interior?
Yep, the compressor actually does ALL the work! It compresses the refrigerant, which gets hot, then the heat is taken away by the radiator and the relatively cool refrigerant is sent into the cabin where it is given the opportunity to expand rapidly, cooling very quickly in the process, thereby absorbing the heat from the cabin. The now warm refrigerant is sent back to the compressor and the cycle begins again.
And I loved that Datsun. Nice truck.