Time to replace ancient Lennox box.

[BaldLoonie]

Not a real good picture Hound. Used my camera. I see one unit got hit by copper thieves. Epidemic around here. Lousy cops and apparently the scrapyards don't care either.

[Shophound]

The last operating one I saw was about that size. It was on top of an old post office building in San Diego County. It had a belt driven condenser fan, which blew me away when I saw that. The one at my parent's place had a direct drive blade that had thick gauge steel, spun by a 56 frame motor. Took a long time to spin up to full speed.

[mark beiser]

Thanks. Likely before that old beast was abandoned it had a compressor replacement or two. Thinking back on why our HS2 ate several compressors, it could have been the low speed of the comp not allowing good oil return. When we finally dropped a new condenser in with a high speed comp, that unit lasted almost thirty years with no problems.

He isn't a customer of mine at the company I'm at now, but I know where one of the old low speed compressor units was still operating as of 4 years ago.
It was built in 1947!

About 14 years ago I replaced the evaporator coil, because the drain pan rotted out. I also replaced the furnace because it was a downflow and the old MONSTER cast iron heat exchanger furnace would probably have crushed the new coil like an empty beer can.
The old man refused to replace the outdoor unit. He seemed unnaturally fond of it...

He built the house mostly himself after he got back from WW2, and it was the last of the original appliances.
The compressor, capacitors, and contactor were the original parts, but the belt drive condenser fan motor had been replaced.

[Shophound]

Mark, I gotta ask if that '47 low speed Lennox used R12. I think it was you who told me that "HS" in the model number stood for "high speed".

Most of the R22 low speed Lennox condensers in my 'hood did not seem to live more than ten-fifteen years. The high speed ones like in the OP's photo hung on longer, for the most part. My parent's unit ate at least three comps before a high speed condenser went in, which ran almost thirty years before the new homeowners replaced it because they enlarged the house.

Baldloonie, thanks for the photo. Amazing the one on the left had not been ravaged by copper thieves like the one on the right.