Saturday, Aug. 22, 2026

Yesterday I took the 55 wagon to the Depot Street Car Show in Bloomfield, and had a super time.

I parked at City Hall as I have done for the past year and a half, though this year I had plenty of company, including the couple in the 1969 SS 350 Camaro from Lebanon. There was a guy who arrived ahead of me driving a 1956 Chevy truck, bright red and beautiful. We were joined later by a couple in a 1952 Chevy truck,, black and white original. It was sharp too.

I don’t recall all their names, but we had a great time talking. The Taylorsville guy had just come back from the Tri-Five Nationals, and told me lots about the show — nearly 3,000 cars and it was hotter than blazes there. His truck has AC, fortunately.

He went to the Nationals with a group of guys, so I’m sure that was fund. It was his first trip there.

My son arrived about 6:30 p.m. and he took more than 300 photos of cars at the show. He did a really great job with the photos, too. I have the posted on the Nelson County Gazette.

WHISKEY CITY CRUISERS TOMORROW. The local car group, the Whiskey City Cruisers, will hold their monthly cruise at Buzick’s Lumber and Home Center tomorrow. My son is onboard to take more photos, which will be great. The weather is going to be excellent, so I wouldn’t be surprised if we have a great turn-out.

We missed an opportunity at Bloomfield yesterday. I should have made some flyers — even half-page flyers — promoting the Whiskey City cruise with the participants at Depot Street. I suspect many of them already know, but a little reminder wouldn’t hurt.

With my son’s great photos of the engine compartments, I got a good survey of how others are mounting AC compressors and their alternators. Right now, my alternator is on the passenger side. I’m most likely going to need to move the alternator to the driver’s side, the mount the compressor on the passenger side.

Why change the alternator? Placing the AC compressor on the passenger side makes routing the hoses much simpler, and avoids routing the AC lines over the top/front of the engine. I have a couple of photos of driver’s side AC compressors, and I don’t particular like the look.

I probably will order a new alternator bracket to relocate it to the drivers side, right over the power steering pump.

COLDMASTER AC KIT LOOKS GREAT. A company called Coldmaster offers universal belt-driven AC systems for just under $600, which includes everything with the exception of mounting brackets for the compressor. Their eBay listings wisely suggest that you make sure their evaporator will fit your available space; that unit will fit, but I’ll probably need to move the 4-gauge unit over to just next to the steering column.

Another thing I’m interested in doing is to remove the factory heater core and heater box up behind the dash. This will give the new evaporator a little more room to set back under the dash without protruding so much.

Not much more to add, just need to bite the bullet and spend about $590 for the AC kit and about $100 for the compressor mount.

I think I’m going to check on buying the alternator mount. I can relocate the alternator before I install the AC system.