Well, so much for consummating the grand experiment with this refrigerant...
It took me fifteen hours from the time I started Thursday morn to the time I finished Thursday night. There was a lot of work to do as I had cut my fan guard in half to do away with the extreme hassle of removing the fan with the one piece fan shroud in the way. But I made that work... Now all I have to do when I take the fan off, is to take the top half of the shroud off and I made a system that holds the large flappy side of the shroud together so the two halves don't tend to 'flap' past each other as the fan is working...
I found that the idler pulley was starting to grind in the bearing, so I replaced that. I had stripped the threads for the bolt that holds the other pulley on the belt tensioner, so I replaced that as well. Mine has the hydraulic shock on it.
I then left the fan off and tilted the radiator to the engine (cardboard between the radiator and the water pump shaft!!!)...
Pulled the old condenser off and just this morning, I discovered that it was for a 1994 F-350 (which explains why it came with the rubber feet and tabs way too big for the bolts that held the original condenser in place) It was a Visteon Part # 1157. It should be Part #1155 for serpentine or #1055 for tube and fin...
Went to install the new 1055 and can you believe it? I had to trim some metal from the outlet tube reinforcement arm to make it fit! GRR!!! Also had to adjust the mounting pad that are screwed on the condenser... Made in Mexico!!! What's the matter with them? Don't they use jigs when making these parts?
Ok, it's 2:30 or so when I get that done. Now for the blowing out the hoses to make sure no bugs are trying to make new homes... Of course I blew out the new condenser before I put it in... So I get to the evaporator... And blow it out... Bingo! Out comes a whole cup of flush!!! All over my engine bay!!!
I spent at least 15 minutes blowing that out after I flushed the first time!!!
Oh well, I'm just glad I checked for bugs in my condenser, that kept me from losing a brand new compressor... So I air flush the condenser for another 15 minutes, popping it to make sure I got the last of the flush out. You can never be too careful concerning these systems...
I precharge the new compressor and this one has a sticker that says to put only 3 ozs of oil in the suction side. I put in a total of 9 ozs of Supercool PAG 46 throughout the system with no dye. Don't need to put any in, all new accumulators have desiccant pads with dye in them.
Now, it's 5:30 and I'm ready to vac the system down. I pull down to between 25 to 50 microns for twenty minutes (you have to have the gauges installed for this and for charging also and make sure you zero out the low side gauge, too). Then I turn the shut off valve on my vac pump and turn it off (in that order) and I let it sit for
ONE hour!
Yay! No leaks! The needle didn't even budge! Now I'm ready to suck it out for
TWO hours... I want to make sure that
ALL of the air and moisture is evacuated out of the system before I charge it with refrigerant!!!
8:00... Now I'm getting my cans and scale ready. I made a homemade
thingamob® that holds the cans upside down nicely and sits on my scale that reads out in grams. ES-12 can be charged into the system in liquid phase and that still won't slog the compressor at all. It is a lot quicker too!
The gauges and hoses are still in vacuum and now it's time to connect the yellow hose that was connected to the vac pump, to the can. This is also the charging hose. I weigh the can with the hose attached to it, note that down (make sure you keep track of how much you charge in grams, it requires 396 grams for a full charge)... Discharge the contents of the can (upside down) into both ports with the engine and compressor
NOT turning...
Close the high side valve on the gauge and connect the cycling switch and compressor. Start your engine (I drove around for ten minutes before I started the charging process because I wanted the engine warmed up to finish the charging.
After I started the engine,
I turn the A/C to MAX with fan wide open. Stuck a digital thermometer into the driver's side center vent and monitored the temps.
I unloaded a full 396 grams and shut off the can, disconnected the hoses and took it out for a test ride...
It's 74 degrees out and I drive for 2.5 miles. the lowest the temp got down to was 45 degrees. Hmm, that's only a 29 degree drop. I wanted at least a 45 degree drop. So I turn around and head back to the house with the fan all of the way down to low. I get home and the vent is blowing 32.5 degrees... In 74 degree weather!!! 50 degrees in 100 degree weather with the fan on full blast is my goal, so i shut everything down and put everything away for the night. It wasn't a complete success, but it works as well as most 134 systems, soo...
Ok, there's a few mistakes I made which didn't become apparent to me until later...
The first and BIGGEST mistake I made was I used 134 gauges and got adapters for them so I could connect directly to the R-12 fittings that come stock with these A/C lines. The reason I used these adapters was two fold. One, you are not supposed to use the 134 fittings unless you are indeed using 134...
Two, in my experience, the high side fitting tends to leak and I always blamed it on the 134 fitting, so rather than buy gauges for R-12, I cheaped out and got the adapter hoses that connect the 134 gauges to the hose fittings. I got rid of the 134 fittings and I thought it was a good idea, but uncle Murphy likes to move in mysterious ways...
Well, I left those adapter hoses connected to the A/C LINES with the safety caps on them and went to sleep. The next morning, I started to connect the gauges up, with the low side first and then when I got to the high side, as I went to take the safety cap off, I noticed the air in front of the fitting was shimmering, the fitting was leaking! I connected the hose and then checked the static pressure and it was 35 psi!!!
My adapters for my 134 gauges let most of the refrigerant out overnight while I was counting the sheep!
Don't leave anything hooked up to the A/C lines, the gremlins will smell stupidity and jump up and down on it like kids on a mattress!!!
Ok, my first mistake was not taking all of the gauge hoses off the A/C line and that cost me refrigerant and I just had enough to charge the system once, not twice!!! So I have to order some more and wait for it to get here... And now I have no idea how much is in there, but all is not lost!!!
I have researched using another method of insuring that your system is full of refrigerant, using the temperature differences between the evaporator inlet and outlet... Now I don't have to worry about discharging the stuff into the air (no reclaimer and nobody wants to reclaim HC's in their machines)... I can just fill until the temp probe shows equal temps between the inlet and outlet. It has something to do with a term called 'supercooling'...
So right now, I have immediate frost just past my orifice tube and that is what is called the 'phase change point' and the objective is now to move that 'phase change point' further into the evaporator by adding refrigerant. By adding refrigerant, the point can be moved further and further into the evaporate until it reaches the center of the evaporator. It is at that point that the inlet and the outlet temps should be equal.
You know, when I bought my new orifice tube, it looked like it was a maroon color and I asked him about it. He said that that is supposed to be the red that they use for the red color designation.
Just maybe the orifice is brown or purple... I KNOW I don't have a obstruction at my orifice tube, so get that out of your mind...
If within 5 degrees of each other, stop! If inlet is 5 degrees warmer or more than the outlet, then reclaim some... If inlet is 5 degrees colder or more than the outlet, then add more refrigerant, little at a time and don't forget to wait ten minutes or so before you do anything else which will give the system time to equalize to the changes.
I'll bet you are holding your breath, waiting for me to get to my second mistake. It's probably the single, most occurring reason a lot of experimenters get discouraged and also could explain why I never got the temps I expected the first time.
I failed to account for the volume of my gauges! What I mean is your gauges can easily take up 4 ozs of refrigerant before it even starts to enter the system!!! That means that I would have needed 528.62 grams at the least and because of ES literature, I have reason to believe that the refrigerant may not be as good as advertised...
They have said that their stuff is 60% more efficient than R-12, whereas elsewhere, they say you only need 33% of the weight of the R-12 capacity. That is 415.5 grams, using 28.33 grams per oz. Then add in the 4 ozs needed for the hoses and there's 528.62 grams. But if the truth is 60% efficiency, then we need 498.6, then 4 ozs and we find that we need at least 611.92 grams and that amounts to just under 4 cans at 6 ozs each.
Better get 5 cans, because you have to purge the charging hose each time you connect it to a new can. You don't want to introduce any air or moisture into the system with any air that entered the charging hose during the time it was being transferred from the old can to the new can...
So, that's where I am and will be until I get more refrigerant, new R-12 gauges and an adapter to mate my new R-12 gauges to my can tap. Almost two weeks... This stuff (both the R-12 gauges and the Industrial ES-12) is not sold at the stores, so you can't just run out and buy what you need when you screw up.
GET 5 cans if you are going to play this game!
Now for some A/C *****!!!
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A pic of the orifice tube! Does it look red to you? I assure you that it is a 4-Seasons brand "red" orifice tube!!!
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The Thingamob®
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