New grille

[Lil Foot]

Just replaced the complete AC system in my truck. ('03, 219K, in AZ)
Compressor ate itself, & the condenser was hammered, mainly because of that original grille, which has openings big enough to pass a small plane thru, so it never stopped any bugs/rocks.
I doubt it was passing 30 or 40% of the air it should have.
So today I swapped in a new grille, (with smaller openings) reminds me of those International ProStar grilles.

 

[Daren Todd]

Need to post your photos again. They didn't come through.

Curious to see what you did.

 

[Lil Foot]

Need to post your photos again. They didn't come through.

Curious to see what you did.

Check it now, I forgot one, and when I tried to add it, I ended up having to flush them all & reload from scratch.

 

[Fordtech86]

6.0

my grille goes the other way though

 

[Flintknapper]

You must not have 'Love Bugs' where you live?

 

[Lil Foot]

Nope, haven't seen those, but most bugs I hit are armored, and at 75 to 80mph, they mash condenser fins pretty bad.

 

[Daren Todd]

Check it now, I forgot one, and when I tried to add it, I ended up having to flush them all & reload from scratch.

Yup..... much better

Ford pickups were notorious for bad AC compressors up until 07 to 08ish. I'm actually surprised you got so many years out of the one on your truck.

My 03 service truck I was driving until 08 was in the shop once a year for the AC compressor.

My 04 F150 had the AC fixed twice. First time was 6 months after the purchase and then again in 2011.

Heck, my 2018 F550 service truck had a new compressor and condenser installed this past winter.

 

[Lil Foot]

Yeah, my diesel guy said Ford compressors are (s-word), but are better than the other (s-word) compressors that are out there. Hopefully this one lasts like the old one.

 

[Yooper]

Your truck is in really nice shape considering all the salt they use on the roads in Arizona in the winter time!
Seriously though, that is a nice looking grill

 

[Lil Foot]

Your truck is in really nice shape considering all the salt they use on the roads in Arizona in the winter time!
Seriously though, that is a nice looking grill

Thanks!
Sadly, they now use salt on the roads here. But only in the winter, in the high country when it gets icy, which is thankfully not that often.

As long as I have lived here, they used to use cinder sand on the roads. Volcanic cinder sand left over from processing cinders into 2" minus, 1" minus-, 1/2" minus, etc.
It is either black or wine red color that heats in the sun, and it has about 5000 times the traction of salt or regular sand.

Someone sued claiming they were putting non-native material in the forest at the road shoulders. What could possibly be more native? The whole northern half of AZ is volcanic!

So now they use salt.
The result after 10 years of salt use is that all the trees near the highway are dead or dying. They were already stressed with the drought, so a little salt just finished them off.

I suspect that someone well connected has pushed this thru because they own a salt factory or a salt distribution company.

 

[dlsmith]

My '06 F150 with 244K still has the original compressor and condenser on it. Of course I'm sure it doesn't get near as much use here in northern Indiana as yours does in Arizona.

 

[jyoutz]

Your truck is in really nice shape considering all the salt they use on the roads in Arizona in the winter time!
Seriously though, that is a nice looking grill

In fact Arizona highway department uses a lot of de-icer chemicals on highways in the winter. In the northern part of the state. Arizona is a big state with lots of different climates.

 

[jyoutz]

Thanks!
Sadly, they now use salt on the roads here. But only in the winter, in the high country when it gets icy, which is thankfully not that often.

As long as I have lived here, they used to use cinder sand on the roads. Volcanic cinder sand left over from processing cinders into 2" minus, 1" minus-, 1/2" minus, etc.
It is either black or wine red color that heats in the sun, and it has about 5000 times the traction of salt or regular sand.

Someone sued claiming they were putting non-native material in the forest at the road shoulders. What could possibly be more native? The whole northern half of AZ is volcanic!

So now they use salt.
The result after 10 years of salt use is that all the trees near the highway are dead or dying. They were already stressed with the drought, so a little salt just finished them off.

I suspect that someone well connected has pushed this thru because they own a salt factory or a salt distribution company.

The reason that ADOT uses de-icer chemicals now is because of the 42 car pileup east of Flagstaff on I-40 due to black ice that happened in the 1990s. The state paid big on lawsuits.