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My AC is almost entirely dead, and since I drive this car for work every day I want to recharge it. So far I have only found one shop that can even do an R12 system, and they want $200 if there are no problems. Does anyone know of a good place to do it that is hopefully cheaper?

your probably not going to find it much cheaper. R12 is no longer made. so the price is crazy high. im not sure if you can do a conversion to R134A on your system. but i will say in my opinion R 12 is works so much better than r134a. you might as well pay the two hundred bucks and have it done.

On my last car I got it recharged (in north Idaho) for $75. I was expecting it to cost more here, but not THAT much more. And I agree, it was far better than my mom's brand new car with R134.

thehookeup wrote:but i will say in my opinion R 12 is works so much better than r134a.

Actually, r12 works much, much better. it's just far worse for the atmosphere.


The improvement you saw was probably in going from an old AC to a new AC

Splinter wrote:

thehookeup wrote:but i will say in my opinion R 12 is works so much better than r134a.

Actually, r12 works much, much better. it's just far worse for the atmosphere.

Isn't that what he said?

You can convert it to 134a.

134a does work fine, and if the conversion is done right, it'll work just as good. The temps may not get as cold, but it's a couple degrees, which in the grand scheme of things won't matter.

jnorion wrote:Isn't that what he said?

I have terrible reading comprehension

from what i have noticed r 12 isnt worse for the atmosphere than 134a, the thing is . Dupont had the rights to R12. as soon as the Copyright was up on the product they came out and said that the R12 was terrible for the atmosphere.. So the government put a ban on it. and said it was to no longer be produced.. And they said that R134A was better. Now the rights to R134A are almost up. and the dupont family is saying that its horrible for the atmosphere.

The catcher is that the governtment owes the Dupont family a lot of money. infact into the trillions. so whatever the dupont family wants is what they get. the new refridgerant is coming soon if not already out.

true the R12 does work better, but its possible that the dupont organization is lying about the affects that refridgerants have on the enviroment.

i know it sounds conspiracy, but most likely its true

That doesnt explain why they do it in other countries.

i think they are just following. im not saying its 100 percent accurate. but it makes sense

not really...

Even a high-school level education in chemistry makes it easy to see how R12 is bad for the atmosphere

Unless they've gotten to the chemistry teachers too

just do it yourself, napa sells the conversion kit for 50 bucks and it takes about 10 mins, but in doing so...i guess i vented it to the atmosphere...so i take full responsibility for global warming

I don't think there's anything left to vent in my system... after converting to R134 do I have to take it somewhere else to recharge it or can I do that as well? I thought you needed specialized equipment.

The kits you buy won't do it properly.....

Unless you have a vacuum pump, you'll need to take it to a shop.

you have to have the system evacuated and put into a vacuum. but then you can charge it yourself with one of those cans that you can buy at a autoparts store/

i used that retrofit kit crap on my 1991 Legacy, and that shit was retarded. it didnt even last long. couple of weeks after, when i tried to use it, it makes a terrible, terrible sound. maybe the compressor went bad cuz of that piece of crap kit.

maybe i just got lucky, i was just too lazy/cheap(mainly cheap) to do it any other way, i never use the AC, but it makes the defroster work, so i just went the route i did, no vaccum. oddly enough, its still blows just as cold as it did with the original R12.

OK, so I found this tutorial:

link

Were there pictures to go with it originally? I don't know a whole lot about the AC system, so that would make it easier. If not, off I go to find a book about it, or something.

ok ok, i didnt do those steps in the tutorial, maybe that's why mine crapped out on me. but then again, that retrofit kit didnt say S*** about doin any of that...

jnorion wrote:OK, so I found this tutorial:

link

Were there pictures to go with it originally? I don't know a whole lot about the AC system, so that would make it easier. If not, off I go to find a book about it, or something.

I'm not sure I get your question. The pictures are of the AC components.

I'd recommend the haynes book mentioned in my thread.

Project_Legacy wrote:ok ok, i didnt do those steps in the tutorial, maybe that's why mine crapped out on me. but then again, that retrofit kit didnt say S*** about doin any of that...

The retrofit kits suck....and are pretty much a band-aid type of approach.

Legacy777 wrote:I'm not sure I get your question. The pictures are of the AC components.

I'd recommend the haynes book mentioned in my thread.

I don't see any pictures. I was wondering if it was a picture-less tutorial, or if there had originally been pictures and the host was down now, or what.

I think I probably will take a look at the Haynes book, I just wanted to check on the information about my specific car too.

But I'm confused also... you say the retrofit kits suck. Isn't the kit just the fittings and o-rings that you need to rebuild it, in one package?

I posted these pics
http://www.main.experiencetherave.com:8 ... es/accomp/

Do they work for you?

I don't know specifically what kit project_legacy got, but it doesn't sound like a very good kit.

A good retrofit kit will have the fittings, o-rings, receiver-drier, oil, and all that jazz. However most do-it-yourselfers don't use those kits because you need to pull a vacuum and gauges, etc.

Unless you have all the equipment, you have to take it to a shop.

The pictures work on the separate page, I just couldn't see them in the tutorial. Thanks!

From the pictures of the Napa kit, it looks like it just has o-rings, fittings, and oil.



Obviously that's not everything I need, but isn't that basically what you had when you did the conversion for the tutorial? Enough to do the prep work before taking it to the shop for them to pull a vacuum on it, anyway?

Here is the Endwrench page that gives the Subaru conversion kits numbers,http://endwrench.com/images/pdfs/InsiderACRetrofit.pdf

The indicated service bulletin has instructions on how to do it.

here is the link for the instructions http://www.endwrench.com/pdf/heat/FtACR ... ureS00.pdf