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Expansion valve ?

Posted: Wed May 24, 2017 12:41 am
by icrman
Are there any diy's on how do it? I'm guessing the evaporator needs to come out and does the instrument panel need to come out to get to it?

Re: Expansion valve ?

Posted: Wed May 24, 2017 6:13 am
by Alphius
The dash and evaporator core do need to come out of the car to change the expansion valve.

Re: Expansion valve ?

Posted: Wed May 24, 2017 5:31 pm
by Legacy777
Actually that's not true. All you need to do is remove the glove box, evacuate the AC system, disconnect the hoses just behind the firewall that connect to the evaporator box, remove the evaporator box drain hose, remove to two bolts from the evaporator box (one on the top and one on the bottom), and then you will be able to remove the evaporator box from the car. Once you do that you can get into the evaporator box and expansion valve.

Here are some pictures of my AC escapades.

https://main.experiencetherave.com/suba ... es/accomp/
https://main.experiencetherave.com/suba ... es/acevap/

Re: Expansion valve ?

Posted: Thu May 25, 2017 12:52 am
by icrman
Thank you Josh.
So is the drain hose pretty easy to get to? And where abouts are those 2 bolts? So was that on your 90 Legacy?
What did you have to do to fix your system? And huge thanks.

Re: Expansion valve ?

Posted: Thu May 25, 2017 6:07 am
by Alphius
Aha, guess that shows me. :P I did the TXV and heater core at the same time with the dash out, didn't look like it'd be possible with the dash in but that's good to know.

Re: Expansion valve ?

Posted: Wed May 31, 2017 5:35 pm
by Legacy777
icrman wrote:Thank you Josh.
So is the drain hose pretty easy to get to? And where abouts are those 2 bolts? So was that on your 90 Legacy?
What did you have to do to fix your system? And huge thanks.
Yes, the drain hose is easy to get to and you can simply twist and remove it from the engine bay.

The bolts are pretty much dead center on the evaporator box. If you peel the carpet back a little bit you'll see the bottom one and for the top if you look up under the dash you should see it. There are some electrical connectors you'll need to disconnect before removing the evaporator box.

Yes this was on my 90 Legacy. I never really had major issues. I had some compressors that failed and I attribute that to using esther oil instead of PAG 100 when I did my 134a conversion. I think I may have swapped the evaporator as well because the original was nasty and smelled horrible. The system blows very cold with 134a. It cools better than my Impreza.

Re: Expansion valve ?

Posted: Sat May 11, 2019 10:59 pm
by icrman
I am finally trying to do this. So how easy will it be to pull the box out after the bolts are out the seals etc??? And how or where are the electrical connectors other than the resistor?

Re: Expansion valve ?

Posted: Sat May 11, 2019 11:25 pm
by icrman
And other than the radiator what other things need to be removed to get the condenser out?

Re: Expansion valve ?

Posted: Sun May 12, 2019 9:20 pm
by icrman
Okay it worked great, but I also loosened the 3 mount bolts for the fan assembly that attach it to the fire wall, to give it a bit of wiggle room. I could not work the firewall seal off the pipes, so kinda fed some of it in to the interior a bit. It easily pulled through the firewall with the box. Sure glad I removed it, the evaporator had maybe 10% if that of air flow through it. In the days of the engine leaking oil and the oil fumes being sucked in there, oil film helped oil up the dust in a major portion of it and totally blocked the air flow, also just lot of other trash plugging it up. These things really needed a cabin filter.

Re: Expansion valve ?

Posted: Mon May 13, 2019 5:38 pm
by Legacy777
Glad to hear you were able to get it complete.

Re: Expansion valve ?

Posted: Mon May 13, 2019 7:59 pm
by icrman
The whole ac system is removed from the car. Next will be cleaning it all up, and then assemble it all on the floor, and vacuum it and check for leaks. And when I get the time, I'll put it all back in. The outfit that converted it to 134 of course did not do it the correct way and the compressor got ruined after about a year or so. As far as I know the only correct way is to do what I just did. Or at least do a good flush.
To get the condenser out the grill needs to come off. Then like the radiator there are 2 bolts at the top that go front to rear.

Re: Expansion valve ?

Posted: Tue May 14, 2019 6:21 pm
by Legacy777
Yup, I ended up pulling everything out and flushing it out real good. I got a bunch of metallic flakes that came out the condenser from when the compressor seized.

Re: Expansion valve ?

Posted: Fri May 24, 2019 8:48 am
by icrman
I got some sparkles after flushing stuff. My latest problem is I was in the process of bench assembling the system to check for leaks. And when removing the small tube that screws on the big outlet pipe that goes through the firewall it was kinda tight, well the threads where corroded and the new nut would likely get ruined and not even tighten enough on that thread so now I need a new pipe, if I could even find a wrecking yard car it very likely would have the same problem, so wow, I hope the dealer can get one, I bet it is very pricey, I couldn't believe the price for the formed trans cooler to radiator hoses, like 32 each. I'm guessing that tube if they have it will be over 100. If I had a good lathe and tig welder I could fix it.

Re: Expansion valve ?

Posted: Fri May 24, 2019 10:20 pm
by icrman
Went to dealer, and its one crappy parts picture on that computer, and it showed no separate pipe from the evaporator and of course no longer available.
So now that project is on hold. I'll keep posting what I end up doing.

Re: Expansion valve ?

Posted: Sun May 26, 2019 3:42 am
by Legacy777
Can you post a picture of what you need?

Re: Expansion valve ?

Posted: Tue Jun 04, 2019 10:25 pm
by icrman
I found one in a wrecking yard. Its the aluminum tube that connects the outlet hose from the evaporator. I had to file the large threads as they were kind of galled. I thought there was a link in this thread about the quantity's of oil to add to the various components? It must have been another thread.
Okay found the oil thread, https://bbs.legacycentral.org/viewtopic ... 3&start=25, So I'm going to use PAG 100.

Re: Expansion valve ?

Posted: Wed Jun 05, 2019 3:55 am
by Legacy777
Ok, hopefully you are able to get everything back together and cold blowing :)

Re: Expansion valve ?

Posted: Wed Jun 05, 2019 6:27 am
by icrman
So the information I found in a 92 online manual, it says 70 cc of oil in the compressor, 70 cc in the evaporator, 50 cc in condenser, and says not really necessary in the receiver drier. I also had found generic listing of oil quantity and I think it was a total of 180 cc's.
So far got the compressor in and added 70cc to it. So do these quantity's look about right? I may go with a few cc's in the receivre drier, and fudge the others a bit. And in the end have about 180 cc's total. Thanks.

Re: Expansion valve ?

Posted: Sat Jun 08, 2019 9:32 pm
by Legacy777
I can't speak for the total quantities, but yeah, I'd add a little in the receiver drier.

Re: Expansion valve ?

Posted: Mon Jun 10, 2019 2:55 am
by icrman
I ended up not adding any to the dryer. Since I was interrupted its a guess of about 160 to 170 cc's total. And so far just added around 22 oz of refrig and it is blowing cold. Pressures? How far can I trust harbor freight gauges? The tag in the car said 28 oz of R12, and I found a site that said use 80% of that for 134 and adjust from there, I have not added anymore, I don't want an over fill.

Re: Expansion valve ?

Posted: Mon Jun 10, 2019 5:23 pm
by Legacy777
What are the temperatures coming out of the vents? If it's blowing cold yeah I'd probably leave it be. I charged mine to around 80% of the R12 capacity.