AC Rebuild - Part 1 - 08/24/2018

I like air conditioning. It's a pain when it doesn't work and it's hot outside. I'm no stranger to repairing the AC systems of cars, so I decided to tackle this one.



The beginning. It's complete, but the compressor is locked up. Someone also spray bombed the underhood, so it's all black and everything is hard as a rock.



Gotta drain the radiator to get the condenser out. Pulled the lower hose because of how annoyingly slow the petcock in the bottom allows it to drain.



Receiver\drier assembly. You can see the hose is covered in paint under the foam as are the fittings.



The compressor muffler and suction\discharge lines are all painted black too.



The high pressure fitting is leaking when I remove the black cap. So obviously this is a problem that needs to be fixed and who knows how long it has been like this.



Fittings to the condenser are removed and there's zero oil in this. It's pressurized... but no oil. It's pretty much dry as a bone inside. Obviously it's been not working for many years as if the black o-rings weren't a dead giveaway...



Receiver\drier assembly is opened and the o-rings are hard as a rock and no oil in here either.



Compressor removed, which wasn't that hard since I already had corrected the incorrectly installed mounting hardware. It's also an R4 compressor and they're super light.



Compressor hardware with my special nut spacer to replace lost factory spacer...



Compressor itself plus lines.



Liquid line removed.



Condenser is out!



Hoses are removed by using a Dremel to split the crimp fittings, then tugging very hard on the old hoses until they come off.



This car has a tiny radiator...



Unfortunately after all this work, the condenser is wrong. The fittings are wrong for one and they come out at the wrong angle for two. So I have to clean up the original condenser and reinstall it.



Radiator is done and filled... just in time for the condenser to be removed and reinstalled. Lame. I did get the correct factory upper hose on again, so wee.



Fittings wiped clean of the paint and grime and internally hosed down and cleaned with brake cleaner. Ready to install new hoses - 5/8" and 13/32", which I didn't have and now have to wait for.



And it's definitely obvious that this fitting is bad with the giant chunk missing from the o-ring.

Well now I have to wait for the correct hoses. No one sells the stuff locally... have to special order them. Oh well, time to relax.

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Last updated August 28th, 2018