AC System Rebuild

[Nick H]

Hi All,
Felt the need to share after a frustrating day in the garage!
I have been sorting LJH's air con system today. Fitted new compressor no problem.
Striped out accumulator/dryer and removed old hose's.
Next orifice tube. Good name :wink: And where things started to go bad.
Well stuck in place as the evaporator tube was bent.
Filter mesh was clogged.
Decided kill or cure and ended up damaging the evaporator :evil: . But there was no way the new orifice was going to fit anyway.

Ordered new evaporator and started striping out the old one. Hell what a job this is. At least I can replace all the old
foam on the vent/heater box as it is shot. And flush the heater matrix.

Need a cold one now
Nick H

[Chris Williams]

IIRC Chris Hawes did a good write up on this some time ago.

Chris

[Nick H]

Cheers Chris.

Striped out the heater today. Removed the old evaporator. Found quiet a bit of muck stuck at the bottom of the evaporator. Now I know why modern AC systems have the pollen filter! I'll post some pics when I get chance.
The foam on the flaps in the heater box is shot so I'll have to recover them.

Nick

[Nick H]

Here's some pics of the evaporator, nasty. Anyone know what the wire mesh is that is fixed to the back? Not seen that in the manual, might be a mod to stop stuff coming through to the rest of the system?




See the wire mesh stuck to the back



Regards
Nick

[Rich H]

Yeh, I had that wire mesh glued to the evaporator when I pulled my heater box out too.

I assumed it was to trap stray bits.

Note that if you are replacing your evaporator with one from Ed, you will need some chunks of foam to pad it out as it's a smaller unit.

[Nick H]

Cheers Rich.
I ordered one from John Harvey so will see what size that is.

I have to pop to Woolies in Market Deeping for the foam for the heater box flaps so I'll see if they do larger foam blocks.
I think they do as they do all sorts of automotive trim and seat stuff.

Regards
Nick

[Nick H]

Evaporator arrived today . Just FYI John's comes with foam for fitting.

Regards
Nick H

[stunned_monkey]

just wanted to pipe up on something Rich and I was discussing recently: The R134a valves that come from John Hervey to fit to the R12 connections on the hoses. You have to remove the valve stems in the R12 connections before fitting the R134a valves to them. This requires the same tool that tyre places use to take out the tyre valve.

[Emagine]

I'm assuming that working on the evaporator core is a dash board out kinda job?

Getting my AC system working (in other words probably ripping on the old system out and renewing most of it) is a job I'd love to get done at some point. Then my car would feel truly finished!

[Guinney1971]

Stu, you're car will never be finished, you'll always find summat to do to it ! :wink: :lol:

[Emagine]

True dat!

[Rich H]

Emagine Wrote:I'm assuming that working on the evaporator core is a dash board out kinda job?

Getting my AC system working (in other words probably ripping on the old system out and renewing most of it) is a job I'd love to get done at some point. Then my car would feel truly finished!

Dashboard, no. But you will need to take out the centre console and the AC / Radio panel.

I finished a total system replacement of few weeks ago, and had it gassed up on 28 May.

It's been freezing cold and raining ever since :evil:

[Emagine]

Sods law that....

Hmmmm soounds involved but not as involved as taking the whole dash out.
Maybe a project for next winter.

I guess to replace all the major components (evap, compress etc) you're looking at a couple of grand?

[Rich H]

Emagine Wrote:I guess to replace all the major components (evap, compress etc) you're looking at a couple of grand?

Less. A complete system comes in at around 1K

[Nick H]

I'd say l have spent about $750. That's replacing all the hoses, new compressor, dryer, hub upgrade to later spec with HP switch. And new evaporator. So the only original part left on the car is the condenser.

Bit of a job taking the heater box out but take your time and you will be fine. Worth doing as all the foam in mine was shot and needed replacing anyway.

Regards

Nick