manufacturer sends with their lockers",
growled the man as he handed the
small compressor to me. "But, yer
know what?", asked the gaffer from
under his singed eyebrow, "Them
compressors are fine for operating the
locker but they just ain't up ter inflatin'
decent sized tires."
"Why the tank on that there itty bitty
compressor only holds 500cc's of air
and that's just about a pint. A pint! And
it only produces 0.88 CFM, that's less
than a Cubic Foot per Minute fer yer
young whippersnappers what don't know
technical terms. And it could only run
fer a few minutes befor yer had ter shut
it off and let it cool down. Why, my
whiskers grew enough ter itch waitin' fer
that compressor ter inflate a tire. So yer
know what I did?"
I confessed that I had no idea what he
did to get enough air to operate his air
locker and inflate his tires.
"Why, I installed a York air conditioning
compressor from an old Ford truck that
produces," he said while peering at his
book, "4.7 CFM at idle, 7.3 CFM at
1000 RPM and a righteous 14.5 CFM
at 2000 RPM, and yer can run it all day
if yer install a coalescing filter. That's five
times as much air at idle and 16 times
as much air if yer crank up the engine.
Would yer like to see it?"
Would I like to see it? Any chance to
examine the old goats Land Cruiser
was a priceless gift as I could learn
more by looking at his Land Cruiser for
10 minutes than I could glean off the
internet in a week. I told him that I would
love to see his compressor arrangement.
Gaffer took me to his Land Cruiser
and opened up the hood. Inside, he
pointed out the York compressor on
its homemade aluminum mount and
described what he had done.
"As yer can see, this here York is lots bigger
than them there electric units. And it's
driven by a belt off the engine so yer have
lots more power ter compress the air. Now
ter make sure that the compressor turned on
and off when it should, I took the pressure
sensitive switch off of that itty bitty electric
compressor and installed it on my air tank."
Gaffer stopped talking and peered at
me from under his singed eyebrow
obviously waiting for me to digest what
he had said and to ask an intelligent
question. Equally obvious, I disappointed
him when made I some comment about
his engine.
"Engine and drivetrain changes are a
whole separate topic!", he growled, "we
can talk about on some other day. Now
look careful. Where der yer suppose
the air tank is for this here York?" After
confessing that I had no idea, Gaffer
pointed to the air line coming out of the
compressor and significantly followed
it with his pointing finger until it
disappeared through the firewall.
"I," he cackled with glee, "plumbed that
there compressor inter' my roll cage
what holds over 4 gallons of air that's
more'n 30 times as much as the itty
bitty tank on that itty bitty compressor."
York compressor in the Gaffer's engine compartment.
TOYOTA TRAILS
44