[DMCForum] 25 hour a/c airathon is over (long)

[billsfanmd@xxxxxxx]

After 25 hours over a 3 day period I now have cold air conditioning. Walt, 
who was up visiting his sister before the show had agreed to help Rich and 
myself overhaul and convert our a/c systems to r134. After promising my wife a/c 
for the 10 hour trip to PF I had to admit defeat in not succeeding. Despite our 
best efforts, replacing all the hoses and only one day to work we could not 
get the system to hold a vacuum and we ran out of time. You donât realize until 
you begin how much work it actually involves. First, special thanks to Walt 
for doing this for at least the fifth time on other cars, Dave Stragand for 
talking me down from the ledge on the phone and for Travis whoâs endless optimism 
makes every repair on this car seem like changing a lite bulb :-)
 
On day one we replaced all my a/c hoses on the car. What makes this tricky is 
in order to get the hoses on the car it requires the final 2 crimps to be 
made at the compressor as the hoses will not fit through the frame with them on. 
Walt brought an expensive crimper and did these perfectly. He meticulously 
went through my entire system and after about 8 hours of detailed cleaning, 
replacing o rings and reconnecting everything we were ready to pull a vacuum. What 
I quickly learned is that pulling a vacuum is easyâ.what your car needs to do 
is HOLD a vacuum When Walt turned the pump off (which is the equivalent of a/c 
life support) I watched in horror as the needle went from -30 and fell back 
to 0 in about a minute. In a/c terms that might as well be a crater size leak. 
Undaunted Walt informed me that it was time to remove the evaporator as 
several signs pointed us in that direction. I notified my wife and kiddies and next 
of kin that I would not be seen for a while. I now know how much work that is 
especially when Walt decided to drive 800 miles to go jet skiing in New 
Hampshire till the parts arrived :-)
 
To make a long story short it took the better part of 2 days to remove, label 
and carefully organize the pile of car parts, screws, nuts and bolts in 
baggies. One task that I can say is the most frustrating is removing the *&^% 
orifice tube. For whatever reason they will not come out! Even with all of Waltâs 
removal tools they can require up to 2-3 hours to get out if they break into 
pieces. We ended up using a corkscrew which pulled the final section safely from 
the evaporator. We even had a hard time getting the new one in because of a 
slight indentation in the evap pipe.
 
Once at the evaporator I told Walt that I always smelled a trace of coolant 
when my heat was on and that I also felt heat under the drivers side footwell. 
Sure enough there was a pinhole leak in my heater core that was draining 
coolant out my a/c drain hose. Also that foam piece that seals the back of the core 
had come unglued.
 
After taking out the old evaporator and pressurizing it we found 3 pinhole 
leaks that were the culprit. There were no evaporators at Pigeon Forge so I 
ordered the replacement parts from Josh and must give him hats off for getting the 
core and evaporator tested and to my door 4 days after the DCS ended.
 
It took about 8 more hours to put both back in and get the whole system back 
together. This included Walt making 4 or 5 repairs along the way including my 
mode switch. I learned you need to patience to not have any left over parts or 
break anything during re-entry. We broke nothing and it went together 
perfectly with no leftover parts.
 
The moment of truth had arrived. I give Walt the go ahead to pull vacuum. The 
pump kicks on and the gauge quickly drops to -30 and we are all smiles. I 
then give him thego ahead to take her off life supportâHe flips off the switch 
and we watch in horror as the gauge sinks back down -28, -25, -20 etc. etc. I 
have lived in my garage for 3 days, I am tired, and I feel all is lost. Walt on 
the other hand is all smiles as it yet another chance to find and fix yet 
another problem. He throws some 134 in the system so he can use his sniffer to 
look for leaks. It did not take long to hear the hissing under the front right 
tire. The culprits were a missing o ring on the high pressure switch, a bent 
Schrader valve and the wrong size o ring on another plug. Walt quickly fixed and 
kept sniffing for more leaks. None were found so we tried again..... âPull 
vacuum!â I ordered. Okay, the moment of truth. Turn the pump off. I watch as the 
guage stays at -30. 15 minutes later we come back outside and the reading is 
still perfect. So we draw a vac for an hour while we finish putting the dash 
back together. There are a lot of other obstacles we had to correct or work 
though but that would take too long to mention. I must say I have a new respect 
for anyone that has a working a/c system. There are so many steps involved and 
places for it to leak from and if you have had to replace your evaporator you 
know how much work it is. 
 
I accomplished about 10-15 repairs while doing this including a corroded 3rd 
speed fan socket. It was green. Walt fixed each of these as we went and now I 
have nice cold A/C. Who knows how long it will last but for now its perfect. 
Again, thanks to Walt for all his persistence. He really knows his a/c stuff.
 
Hope I did not bore anyone but after living out of my garage and having my 
wife wait on us for 3 days and take care of the kiddies this is my first contact 
with the outside world :-)

The problem now is the weather forecast is for the mid 80s this week so now I 
donât need a/c :-)
 
Mike C
2109 with cold a/c


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