I am going to start by addressing all the questions I had when I was looking at doing it as I am sure others will have similar questions.
Q: What parts do I need to remove the A/C?
A: The only things you absolutely need is an M8 - 1.25 x 45mm bolt and a new power steering (P/S) belt. There is a bolt that holds the A/C bracket on that goes to the oil pump too. If this spot isn't filled oil will leak out. Now for the other things you may want. The cooling unit in the dash can be left in but it is somewhat heavy so I wouldn't recommend leaving it. You can take it out and leave the system unhook or you can get the factory replacement tube for non A/C cars. This weighs almost nothing and will still let you bring in fresh air from the outside. Rosenthal Miata sells this for ~$30 and it comes with the grommets to fill the holes that are left in the firewall. I recommend it. (1999-05 miata non A/C air duct) (P/S with no A/C belt)
Edit: Apparently Rosenthal Miata has shut down and the links are dead. So the part number for the air duct is NA0161150A. There are several retailers that sell it for a similar price to Rosenthal. However, I doubt any other sellers will have it with the firewall plugs, so you guys are on your own for that because I don't have part numbers for those. If someone leaves them in the comments I will add it to this. The PS belt with no AC is also readily available from many places, I am fond of Gates so here is a link to Amazon with the belt.
Edit: Apparently Rosenthal Miata has shut down and the links are dead. So the part number for the air duct is NA0161150A. There are several retailers that sell it for a similar price to Rosenthal. However, I doubt any other sellers will have it with the firewall plugs, so you guys are on your own for that because I don't have part numbers for those. If someone leaves them in the comments I will add it to this. The PS belt with no AC is also readily available from many places, I am fond of Gates so here is a link to Amazon with the belt.
Q: Since I am removing one of the accessory pulley's, do I need an idler pulley or something to replace the A/C pulley?
A: Nope. The belt tension mechanism is on the P/S unit, so nothing is needed in this case. Just the new belt that will be shorter. I have seen some forum posts that people had concerns about the change in force on the main crank pulley. For scientific reasons I won't go into, it is fine. Just trust me.
Q: Where are some good references on how to take the A/C out since this blog is long winded and I don't really like to read.
A/C installation instructions - This set of instructions is what everyone uses to do this job. It details how to put A/C in the car, so just work in reverse.
Q: How much weight is this going to save me?
A: I weighed everything I took out and it was 32.0 lbs. Not to mention that your engine isn't running the a/c pulley anymore. That is likely worth at least 50 HP.
Q: Forums scare me and I still have a questions that has not been answered.
A: Lucky for you there is a comments portion on this and no one ever reads it. So your comments are safe between you and me.However my asnwer may or may not be helpful. May the odds be ever in your favor.
Now we can get to the pictures and stuff! I am not going through the whole removal process since the instructions referenced above are pretty good. I am just going to touch on the things that I had issues with or I had more input for.
So step one of this whole thing is to get the refrigerant drained out of the system. This should be done by an auto shop or a refrigeration repair person. SAVE THE ENVIRONMENT SO I CAN HUNT POLAR BEARS! It just isn't as fun when they are trying to swim away.
In standard Ray fashion I was all excited to start working on this and dove in head first and then didn't start taking pictures until I was a good portion in. Maybe one day that won't get the better of me but today was not that day. To give yourself a little room I would take the fan shroud off. The driveer side fan has two bolts on the top holding it in. Remove those and it should pull right out (don't forget to unplug the fan). The passenger side fan has 4 bolts holding it. remove the top two and you only have to loosen the bottom two. The bottom mounts are slotted so they just need to be loose enough to pull the fan up.
Here is the layout of the pulleys if you need a reference:
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Next I took off the accessory belt that runs the A/C and the P/S. This garage post on the mx-5 forum has the all the details on loosening and tightening the belts: Accessory Belt Maintenance. The only thing I have to add to this is my bracket was a little seized and I had to loosen the bolt circled in the picture below to get the whole thing to swing down far enought o get the belt off.
Now comes removing the refrigerant lines. Be careful when doing this, as there may still be some pressurized refrigerant in there. So safety glasses are probably a good idea. I removed the two rubber hoses that attach directly to the compressor. Then came pulling off the condenser (radiator that sits in front of the real radiator). I believe this is held on with only two bolts. Mine were super rusted so be prepared for some rust remover spray.
Then I removed the hard lines that run along the passenger side of the engine bay. I removed the brackets that hold them too.
Once the hard lines are off you can go behind the glove box and pull out the cooling unit. Pull off the glove box and it is the big black box behind it. Take off the two hinge type clips. There are then two nuts that hold the box on, one on the bottom and one one the top. THE TOP NUT IS A REAL BITCH! It is really packed in there. It uses a 10 mm socket and I had to get a universal joint to get the nut because you can't get a straight shot. When you pull out the box the two hose ends that are right at the fire wall come with it. It is easiest if you take the grommets off first. For whatever reason my box was really stuck on the top mounting point. I had to take a screw drive and get it behind the tang and pry on it pretty damn hard to get it to come off.
If you got the Rosenthal kit, the tube just hooks in. The tube sits on the outside of the white plastic openings. The clips that hold the block box are not reused. The three firewall plugs that come with it cover the two holes where the in and out pipe go through and then the third plugs goes where the drain hose was on the cooling box.
Don't forget to un-clip the electrical connector.
You can kind of see where the top nut is on this picture. The red dot at the top is the threaded post that it is on.
The two front firewall plugs
Now you can remove the compressor and the accompanying bracket. This part is easy. There are 4 bolts that hold the compressor and 5 that hold the bracket.
The compressor. The four bolts are shown here in the picture
I already took out two of the bolts when I took this picture.
The shorter bolt is the one that needs to replace the front facing bracket bolt.
The shiny bolt you can see is the one that gets put back in.
You now have the whole A/C System out! Last thing is to put on your new shorter belt for the P/S. Refer to the garage section that I posted on how much tension to put on the belt.
I did nothing with the electrical components yet so I have no input on that. For the two radiator fans, the driver side one is turned on when the engine starts getting hot. The passenger side one is for the A/C unit. My intention is to rewire the A/C fan to just come on when the regular radiator fan is. We will see how difficult this ends up being.
here are all the parts that cam out with my A/C unit.
