I had an interesting conversation with Raven61 over lunch today that ended up talking about how to cool a cab without installing AC or hanging a torpedo cooler on your window. Anyone ever construct your own swamp style device?
I saw one at louisville last weekend.This guy was using a cooler full of ice with a fan ****ing the cold air off the ice and blowing on him.He said that he had to get ice at every gas stop but it worked so well he had driven from alabama with the windows up.
They were used a lot out west because there was less humidity, from what I've been told, But not so much on the northeast.
Every farm tractor with a cab had a swamp cooler on it back in the day. Kept you awake with a faceful of muddy water every twenty minutes! They were just a ring of foam, 2 feet across, with a pump and sprinkler setup to keep the foam wet, sitting on top of a round reservoir with a ten inch hole through it for a fan. They worked kinda good, until you hit a bump and got drenched.
This is a little off topic ,but along the same lines as a swamp cooler. I bought an 82' Chevette Scooter, new, to go to college in, in East Texas; NO air conditioning, and air flow through the car was almost nonexistant. I took two clothes dryer exhaust duct flapper valves. Removed the flapper valve and glued the ring onto the connector tube so it would slip onto the driver and p***enger door gl***; roll the window up and wedge the top of the flapper duct into the window channel; there was still about a 4" gap in the rolled up window, and the flapper ducts acted like air scoops. I could slide them forward or back on the window to get the best flow. They also had pre-installed screens in them to help out with keeping the bugs from being "injected" into the car. I also installed a small occilating fan on the trans tunnel hump. Worked O.K., good enough to get me through 2 years of East Texas high heat/humidity. Got some odd looks too; Washington plates on the car; they probably just thought I was another "crazy Yankee". Now what would a Chevette Scooter look like with a swamp cooler hanging off the p***enger door?
guys are doing it on the samba with their volkswagens. they put dry ice in their overhead vent ducting and it works pretty good. I haven't tried it with my bus yet, but I'm working on a window style swamp cooler for my international truck and my chrysler sedan. maybe a small box mounted under the dash with dry ice and a 12 volt fan? It's worth a shot.
Dry ice give off carbon dioxide, not really sure if that small amount would be dangerous, but just a thought.
Here is what I came up with... Air conditioner using heater and ice box This doesn't create humidity, like swamp coolers do. On my car, it circulates the interior air, rather than using hot outside air and also stays cooler longer.
The Jalopy Journal
