Hello friendly forum! My car has the old-school R-12 style air conditioning system. I had my mechanic look at it today and he said it was "about 2 cans short". I asked him if he would recharge it but he says they don't do the old R-12 systems and doesn't know anyone who will! So I'm wondering: is this an easy job that I can do myself? There is a schrader-valve-looking valve right on the AC pipe right next to the radiator. Do I just hook up something to that valve and pump the fluid in there or what? Has anyone done this to their car here on the forums? Thanks for the tips, Rockworthy
Look for someone that uses Duracool. That's what I use as an R12/R134 replacement and it works great (yes, I have two recyclers for each system). Far superior to 134, Lower pressures than 134, and lower volume (1/3). Fully compatible with all oils and systems. Used as an auto refrigerant in every other country in the world. And cools sightly better than R12 to boot (with less gas)...
I've used this stuff with good results. You can buy it online from their site. A quick search for R12 replacements or R12 substitutes will net you quite a few other options. http://www.freeze12.com/
freeze12 is good but learn how to do the AC work yourself. it's EASY and no more getting ripped off at shops. ;~)
The valve near the radiator will be a "high" side tap, you wont want to try to charge from it the can could explode in your hand!! Do a little homework or take it to someone familiar with HVAC.
Duracool looks to be the answer to MY problems. Any Hamb vendors / members dealers for duracool ? Dave
I thought that some shops have a system to evac R-12 and store it when they repair or convert the old style A/C? R-12 can usually be found at swap meets but it goes for a premium! I converted my 65 Suburban to 134 and it works OK considering the huge area it is required to cool! (Now here is my "No Shit Stupid, Duhr" statement) If you are going to buy and re-use R-12 you want to make damn sure the system isn't compromised and won't leak it back out!
For those who don't know hydrocarbon based refrigerants are marketed as alternatives for R-12 and R-134a. They are environmentally friendly but since its a mix of butane/propane they can be potentially dangerous. BE CAREFULL
I gave my last can or R12 to a buddy with a Miata. Seems the tiny A/C system in that car doesn't work well at all with an R-134 conversion. All my stuff I swapped to R-134 ages ago using the "swap in a box" from the parts store. Vacuum it down really well, follow the directions. I need to go back and change out all my seals though, and maybe upgrade to a double pass condenser.
being a old "refer dude" 9 out of 10 times the shaft seal on compressor is leaking in system and they are not hard to change with proper tools. as far as recovery is concerned no sweat because to system is empty,nothing to recover/ recycle. go to the library and get a book. to understand how thing work just remember "change of state", liquid to gas, gas to liquid and you will be fine. those venturi vacuum pumps from harbor freight actually work (slow as hell) but will get you by. adding wrong amount (overfill) has same results as underfill. now that your totally confused good luck!
Why do you need air conditioning in your car if you live at the North Pole anyway? Is no one else thinking this?
So this is what im working with, everyday. If it just short of r12, evac the system and reload with r134a, what can happen? worst case, the hoses starts to leak, and you cant use an other cooling media, it works ta different pressure, ia, safetyvalves etc wont be right. but you can use r417 thats a direct replacement for r12, its a drop-in so you can just fill up. good luck!
has any one heard of, or used redtek 12a refrigerant?? I've heard great things around here. supposed to work better than 134 in the old systems.
do you guys know that you can use common, office supply, can duster as a refrigerant? i once recharged my hvac with it too. lol... but i just ordered some good stuff from these guys: http://autorefrigerants.com/
OK everybody, here's the deal on old AC units whether they are in your car or run your old coke machine. First, stop going to the local garage or a mechanic for this type of work. They are mechanics and deal in tiny little cans worth major amounts of $$. They are in no way ac specialists and as such most just have the same basic tools that you or I could buy at a parts store to charge our own systems using the same tiny and expensive cans of gas. ---------------------------------- -By law, all heating and air conditioning service companies have to evacuate and recover gases when they recycle or repair old compressors, fridges, freezers and air conditioners. What this means is that any Air conditioning/heating guy in the yellow pages has tanks full of this stuff sitting in storage. Go thru the yellow pages and find a local independent (not a chain store) air conditioning guy and more than likely he will have a ton of it recovered and in storage. My buddy is an air conditioning/heater guy and he has a shed full of recovered gases. If the first guy you phone doesn't know or doesn't want do it, make your way down the list. The last person you want to talk to his his secretary or the answering service. Talk directly to the AC guy himself because in many places, selling you recovered gas is against all tree hugger rules and the secretary will tell you so and may suggest more expensive tree hugger friendly stuff.. Just remember, to recharge any AC system, the system has to be working which means if it's in your car/project, the engine must run the compressor so that the AC guy can insert the proper amount of gas at running pressure. And as the sytem runs and charges, he will test for leaks and fix any problems you have. jmho and I am not a tree hugger. moe
To expand on this a bit, its also against Federal law to use ANY hydrocarbon refrigerant in a car or truck. Ain't got a damn thing to do with the environment, but rather with the fact that a leak under the right conditions can blow your ass off the face of the earth. The huckster assholes who pedal this shit all act like its some great new discovery. Total bullshit. Refrigerants like R-12 were developed as alternatives to explosive hydrocarbon refrigerants long before anyone ever even dreamed of putting air conditioning in a car. Removal of R-12 from the market provided an opportunity for these clowns to start hawking these hydrocarbon mixes at ridiculously high profit margins, and with no mention of their explosive properties. The sale of these products is legal because they can be used as refrigerants in industrial process refrigeration systems. However, it is illegal to market them for automotive use, and in the case of the lower vapor pressure version of 12a, it is illegal to market that product as a replacement for R-12, period, regardless of type of use. FWIW, the names of all these various products is immaterial. They're all the same thing, just like many other generic chemicals that are sold under various brand names. In addition to the Federal laws against auto use, the following states also make the use of hydrocarbon refrigerants in vehicles illegal: Arkansas, Arizona, Connecticut, Florida, Idaho, Iowa, Indiana, Kansas, Louisiana, Maryland, Nebraska, North Dakota, Oklahoma, Texas, Utah, Virginia, Washington, Wisconsin, and the District of Columbia. Obviously, this isn't a collection of states known to be overrun by tree huggers. I wouldn't recommend getting any recovered R-12 from some unknown source either. The only way anyone's gonna have any significant quantity of recovered R-12 is from scrapping refrigerators. A standard recovery cylinder will hold 30# of R-12, which would be all the gas from 15 or more refrigerators. If one of those refrigerators was discarded because of a compressor burnout, all the gas in that recovery cylinder is contaminated with acid which forms when a fluorocarbon refrigerant is exposed to an electric arc. The acid formed is hydrofluoric, which is particularly mean stuff since it'll eat even glass, which most acids won't affect. In reality, the chances are 3 to 5 of the 15 refrigerators died due to compressor burnout. The chances of finding one recovery cylinder that has no acid content is slim to none. Also, the person who's willing to sell recovered R-12 is risking fines in the $25,000 range to make a few bucks since its illegal to sell recovered R-12 to anyone other than a licensed recycler, and furthermore illegal to sell any form of R-12, new, recovered, or recycled, to anyone who doesn't hold a license to purchase the stuff. The person who'll take that sort of risk to make a few bucks off a stranger isn't exactly the type you can trust when he says Yeah, this stuff is just like new. Unless you have a source of new or known good R-12, or you don't mind driving around with the equivalent of a small acetylene cylinder under your hood, with hoses attached, the only real alternative is to switch out to R-134a. If the government had been sensible, not something that happens often, they would've left R-12 on the market and mandated that all new cars and other equipment built after a certain date would have to use R-134a or some other non-flammable replacement. Time would've reduced the demand for R-12 to insignificant levels, without creating the aggravation of switching a system over to R-134, and they wouldn't have created a market for these clowns who're willing to sell you something to turn your car into a potential bomb in the name of making a quick buck.
metlmuncher. i agree totally. thats why i have spent thousands getting my shop certified and training up to date. not to mention the recovery equipment -freon identifiers etc. governments at it again look at the cost of 134a lately?
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