I discovered rather late that my truck’s height specification of 9’6″ had been substantially increased to 11′ with the addition of a Coleman-Mach rooftop A/C unit and diamond plate guard. Upon measuring the overhead door height of the garage where I was going to be doing several months of conversion work I determined that I was approximately 5″ high. My truck has a rear kneel feature, where the rear air suspension can be dumped in order to make it easier to get into and out of the truck, and more importantly, to make it easier to load a patient strapped onto a stretcher. This drops the rear suspension approximately 4.5″ over the rear wheels, which was still not enough to clear the door.
I was initially a bit concerned that the A/C unit was plumbed into the chassis A/C, but this turned out not to be the case. In fact, I discovered that the rooftop A/C unit was entirely self-contained, save for a power cable. I later on found a second A/C-heatpump system that was plumbed into the chassis, but that’s a story for another time.
So with 2″ of ice and snow on the roof I climbed up to remove the diamond plate construct that was protecting the actual A/C housing. This proved to be the hardest part of the job as many of the screws securing it to an L bracket screwed into the roof were well and truly seized. Even with my fancy new Milwaukee Impact Driver, I ended up having to drill one of the screws out, all while slip-sliding around the roof as I fought to get enough traction to not strip each screw head.
With the guard housing out of the way, I found the plastic A/C housing rather trivial to remove. That left the A/C unit itself, which comprised both the compressor and the condenser with fan assembly. Turns out removing it was as simple as removing the housing on the inside and unscrewing four long screws which were essentially pinching it to the roof. I then had to move the 90lb assembly from the roof to the ground without A) injuring myself or B) breaking the A/C unit, which may have some residual value. I first considered simply throwing it off the roof into a conveniently located snowbank. Again, with the idea of perhaps selling it and the unknown composition of said snowbank I sought an alternative method. Using an available tall wooden ladder, I used a cargo strap to gently slide/drop the unit to the ground down one side of the ladder. Probably not OSHA Approved, but it got the job done. As an added bonus, the 14″x14″ hole in the roof also happens to be the exact size needed for the rooftop vent fan I plan to install.
And yes, for those keen-eyed observers, I chose the day of the first major blizzard of 2022 to do this.