['ol Pinion head]

A-6 compressors here on two factory 71-72 455 HO M22 cars & on three '73-79 4spd T/A projects. Have a lot of R12, have never had a prob coming up with R12, reasonably, have even had many long time friends & acquaintances give me cans of R12 when cleaning out their garages, etc.

Personally, can't stand the appearance of the cheesy looking brackets, compressor, & the shape of the lines coming out of the Sandeen conversion setups. Only thing uglier, IMO, is the massive aftermarket compressor setups from the 70's. Have put a ton of miles on four XJ Cherokees over the years & replaced two of their Sandeen compressors, fairly reliable. IMHO, the Sandeen compressors have a place, buried under the hood of a somewhat later model vehicle. If was forced to replace an A-6 compressor & go to an aftermarket replacement on ANY of my Pontiac's or any other that came through here, would replace it with an S-6 compressor. An S-6 that gained a stamped steel shroud to make it look more like an original A-6. Have seen such a fabricated shroud before, painted black & with a reproduction Harrison decal, if you didn't focus on the AC clutch, the whole deal didn't look out of place.

AC to non AC conversions... about to begin extensive cowl face replacement on one of my '72's to convert it to factory heater car appearance/function. For what the car is, knocking 110 lbs off the frontend will help quite a bit. Many years ago, did the quick & easy, just removing the compressor & brackets on my first T/A. Never had a defrost function after that, windshield would fog up with high humidity, was not acceptable. On this '72 A-body, am duplicating the factory non AC functions, sure it will be nice to have the extra room along the pass side, as well as functional defrost function.