Topic: Window tinting on 86 truck??

[mldave]

How much cooler would the A/C be inside the cab if I had the windows tinted on my 86 truck?The A/C was added on and blows 51 degrees at the vent on a 95 degree day.

[Nimyad]

At LEAST 1 degree colder...

[RainierToy]

you would be pretty suprised on how nice some of the new ceramic based windowfilms are. I have some on my 79 with no a/c and you cant feel the heat of the sun on your skin when the windows are up. look for a llumar window film dealer in your area and ask for there ctx film. kinda pricey compared to regular dyed films but well worth it if you are lookin for heat rejection. There are other nice brands too like 3m and solarguard and suntek cxp is pretty good also

[jimbo74]

How much cooler would the A/C be inside the cab if I had the windows tinted on my 86 truck?The A/C was added on and blows 51 degrees at the vent on a 95 degree day.

how much colder do you want it? 38* is what industrial refrigerators are at......

[mldave [OP]]

Thanks RainierToy......

[Snowtoy]

Yes, window tint will cool down the interior by several degrees, unfortunately here in CA it is illegal to tint the drivers or front passenger windows.  If you use limo tint on the rear window(and X-cab windows if you have them) and run 35-40%(allows in 60-65% light) on the drivers/front passenger windows, there is enough of a difference between the two tints that most LEO's don't seem to catch it/or care, but anything darker on the front windows, and you will likely get pulled over just for the tint.

51* at the vent is to warm if it had been running for a while.  Did you run an oem r12 freon, or an oem system converted to r134?

[mldave [OP]]

Snowtoy,the A/C was put together by the p/o with different year parts I'm sure.It's a 134A now..however the A/C amp board in the truck was not working.It had juice going to the A/C amp board from the A/C button but not coming out the other side.After trying three used boards,my mechanic just bypassed the board with a jumper wire on the board plug....A question for you or others,if I had a new A/C amp board which has an idle up and temp adjustment on it would the inset screw adjustment for temp lower the vent temp or would I be wasting the $89 the Toyota dealer wants for the part?

[emsvitil]

The idle up should help a little with lowering temps. (you can test this by raising your idle to 1000 or so)

The board has 2 purposes.   

The first is a low idle cut-off so the AC doesn't drop the idle too low.

The second (which I found out by experimentation as I couldn't find documented anywhere) is an adjustment that uses the thermistor to prevent evaportator ice-ups.      If the evaporator gets too cold, you want to turn the AC off.

If you're not icing up, the board really won't get you anything.

[RainierToy]

You can tint the drivers and pass front windows in California it just has to be a 70% film and glass combined which llumar and 3m both offer ceramic films in a 80% that still reject about 40 to 50% of the total solar energy

[Snowtoy]

This is news to me, do you know the CVC that authorizes it?  The current CVC 26708 states it is illegal, however if the glass is tinted from the factory up to 30%(allowing 70% light in), it is legal.  This is the grey area, since there is tinted oem front side window, if you keep the side windows to 40% or less LEO's  can't really justify pulling you over just for the tint, since they cannot tell from their car wether or not it is oem tint or roll on.


mldave

As to your original questions about cooling the interior, I took some temp measurements today using my laser thermometer and my white '91(only one in sitting in the sun).  Not exactly scientific since I had to roll down the window, but these were the measurements using dark grey strip on the seat cover:
Ambient temp of 68*,
Surface was 86*,
Interior temp 86*,
Side of seat not in the sun was 86*,
Section of seat in the sun with tinted window was 115*,
Window down the same section heated up to 158* even with a slight breeze. 
IIRC(tinted the windows 5yrs ago) I used a 35% light reduction 3m film. 
I also measured the temp with the limo tint(95* light blockage) and the temp was 91*,  dark grey trim which is the same color as I used on the seat.

When I was using the R134 my comp never cycled, and the interior was never really that cool.  The circuit board may help, but from what I understand, you really need to use a comp designed for R134 as well as a condenser(I think).  I switched over to a different refrigerant about 6yrs ago when my comp started making noise.  The refrigerant I use now is called Maxi-fridge, and it works really well.  It is a propane based refrigerant that operates at a lower pressure then the R134 and cools similar to R12.  On another board a lot of members were concerned with it being propane based, but I haven't had any issues and have used it on a few other vehicles as well.

[Travolous]

Man, you guys have tough vehicle laws in California.

[mldave [OP]]

Travolous,you don't know the half of it bro..you can only break wind every other day in Cali..like alternate side of the street parking.In most counties here you have to smog every two years,fortunately mine is one of three or four where smog is only required when changing vehicles if to a non relative.

[kycrawler]

i had to peel the tint off i could see at night on the trial. But i dont have ac in the trail rider.