Dan D
Well-known member
My car hasn't had working ac in 10+ years; never bothered to fix it. I was tired of basically parking it for the summer since I moved to Houston 6.5 years ago so when i had everything ripped apart for the motor/trans rebuild, I went through the whole ac. I replaced every o-ring, put on a reman compressor, pulled the evap and changed the expansion valve, tested all the sensor and rewired a few of them.
Yesterday I changed the drier, pulled a vacuum on it for 30 or 40 minutes and then charged it with 26-28 oz of R134. Everything works, but the outlet air temps are not very cold - 65F while driving (97F outside), 70F while sitting in the garage (it was 102F in my garage yesterday). While at 1500RPM in the garage, the gauges read: Low = 35psi, High = 250psi. I kept adding refrigerant slowly while watching the thermometer in the vent. It kept going down some as I added and then became stagnant at 70F so I stopped.
A few years ago, I was fixing a stripped radiator mount hole and while drilling I hit the condenser - psssss what ever R12 was left at the time when bye bye. I had it welded shut, but I'm not certain that the welding didn't obstruct one of the two flow paths through the core. It seems to me that if that were the case, the condenser’s capacity is cut in half and I would not be able to get as cold of temperatures for a given charge?
Can one of the A/C expects verify my reasoning. Is there something I can watch for on the gauges that could confirm my suspicion? Should I just try and add more R134?
Yesterday I changed the drier, pulled a vacuum on it for 30 or 40 minutes and then charged it with 26-28 oz of R134. Everything works, but the outlet air temps are not very cold - 65F while driving (97F outside), 70F while sitting in the garage (it was 102F in my garage yesterday). While at 1500RPM in the garage, the gauges read: Low = 35psi, High = 250psi. I kept adding refrigerant slowly while watching the thermometer in the vent. It kept going down some as I added and then became stagnant at 70F so I stopped.
A few years ago, I was fixing a stripped radiator mount hole and while drilling I hit the condenser - psssss what ever R12 was left at the time when bye bye. I had it welded shut, but I'm not certain that the welding didn't obstruct one of the two flow paths through the core. It seems to me that if that were the case, the condenser’s capacity is cut in half and I would not be able to get as cold of temperatures for a given charge?
Can one of the A/C expects verify my reasoning. Is there something I can watch for on the gauges that could confirm my suspicion? Should I just try and add more R134?