Well, this is my York air setup. I have to say
this is one of my favorite modifications that I have done on the XJ.
The more I went off road the more I hated looking for air to air back up
my tires. Not to mention how aggravating it is waiting on those cheap
little cigarette lighter powered compressors. So I started doing
a lot of research on the AC compressor to air compressor swap. Soon
I found out that the best option for this is the York, because of its oil
sump built into the unit. Not to mention the amount of air these
thing can pump. So in the back of my mind I kept a look out for a
York. To be honest I really did not think I would find one and was
real uncertain if it would even work in an XJ. But again at my local
Jeep Dealer I was looking around and I see a York setting on a work bench.
I am like hey is that a York, and what are you going to do with it.
He just smiled at me and said "Oh I found that at a junk yard when looking
for parts for my J20". So I haggled with him and took it home. SO
a few weeks go by and I am just trying to find a place for the thing to
even fit under the hood. Well, the only place it would fit under
the hood was where I had removed the stock air box to install a K&N
air filter. Originally I was going to put a second battery
there, but I threw that out the window when I realized there was a good
chance of putting a York there. Ok so I found someplace where it
would fit, now on to the next step getting it power.
It took a few weeks of searching from time to time
in the junk yards looking for a pulley that I could bolt onto my Harmonic
Balancer that would not stick out to far from the engine. I got this
idea from looking back at the CJs and the way AMC added air-conditioning
to the CJ. They added a pulley onto the Harmonic balancer and then
ran it to a York for crying out loud. So I wanted to use the pulley
AMC used on the CJ, but AMC decided to stamp all those pulleys on so they
are not removable. So the search continued. I finally found
a pulley off of a Ford V8 in a scrap yard that I could use and bolted it
onto the Harmonic balancer. So now we come to the mount for the York.
The mount for my York is complex and I am sorry
I don't have a pic of it. It consists of 1 1/2" tubing that is welded
to a piece of flat plate on one end so I could bolt it to the threaded
holes on the engine block just in front of the motor mount. The tubing
then bends up towards the opening I made where the stock air box used to
be. I then crossed braced the tubing with angle iron off of a bolting
place on the air intake manifold. So then the mount twist up toward
the front of the engine compartment and then is welded to the plate mount
that the York can then bolt to. The mounting plate has slotted holes
in it so the York can move to get tension on the drive belt. Ok,
the mount at this point has just a little bit of play in the mount
when the engine would shimmy, so I welded one more piece of angle iron
off of it to the back of the power steering pump mount. The next
step was finding a belt.
The belt I ended up using was a Napa belt that is
57 5/8" long and 3/8" wide. So, I have the York in and the belt on
giving it power. All that is left is connecting it to a tank right?
Hehe I wish it was that easy. Now I had to find a pressure switch,
check valve, regulator, safety release valve, pressure gauge, drain cocks,
plumbing Ts, air lines, power switch, and air tanks. Well, I got
the pressure switch, safety release valve and the check valve from Grainger.
The power switch I attained from Radio Shack. The regulator, plumbing
Ts, drain cocks, and pressure gauge from Lowes
. For the air lines I used 3/8" I.D. hydraulic hoses with crimped ends I had made at
Napa.
For those of you who think the air lines are a bit extreme you have to
remember how hot it gets under the hood and how hot the air is coming out
of the York.
To see how all this stuff goes together look at
my schematic. Please don't laugh to hard at my drawing skills on
this thing, but I think it will give you an idea as to how I hooked it
all up. Now for my air tanks I made
air tank bumpers to hold the air.