Got the air charged up last week,seems to work ok, had 38 degrees at the center vent. I'll try it on a warm day and let you know how it is.

I just road tested it today after a total rebuild, the more I ran it, the better she ran. Poor the girl sat here for 5 years.

Denny     

Found a R-12 hose with the angle connection and got the R134 A/C up and running last week, only problem now is it only blows through the floor vents. I guess I have some vacuum tracing to do. Pain-in-the-butt job, but someone had to do it!

Dave

Hmm. Where did you find the right angle hose? Sure would make the conversion easier.  I had to weld one up and it isn't "pretty".

Glad to hear you got it all worked out.

I found it buried in my pile-of-good-stuff-I-don't-need-anymore-but-can't-throw-away . Everyone has one of those! Seriously, I think I bought it at AutoZone 10 years ago to recharge my 944. Refrigeration supplu houses should have them. It's a 45 deg. fitting, but gets on the port.

Dave

Thanks! I'll see if I can track one down.  Probably wait till I need to work on it again to install it. Like yours, mine only blows cold air on my feet so I am going to have to dive into the dash to see what vacuum/mechanical problems I have to correct.

Shane

I finally broke down and ordered the complete set of factory shop manuals from Helms. 4 books, over 3,000 pages so I guess they must be pretty detailed. likely the best hundred bucks I'll ever invest. I'm not doing anything till the manuals get in. The Hayes manual just doesn't cut it!!

Dave

 This whole thread has me a bit confused.

 My system is already vented. Hose to the compressor was removed. So there should be no R12 left in it.  My questions:

 Do I or do I not need to change the compressor?

 Do I or do I not need to drain the oil?

 Do I or do I not need to change any other components?

 Sorry if I'm opening up Pandora's box but I see lot's of differing points of view here and since I'm not an AC/HVAC guy....

 Hope ya'll can sense and understand my frustration here. Is there one answer to all these questions ? I see many in this thread.

  Jim

JimG38452.4922453704

Jim

The conversion from R-12 to R 134 does require some new components. A new dryer, compressor & O rings is the least you can get away with... the system should be flushed with an air conditioner cleaner. If you don't know much about air conditioning you could flush the system install the new dryer ( don't hook it up as it will take in moisture from the air & be ruined) install new O rings & the compressor. Then take it to an air conditioner shop and they could check you system for leaks & load it up. The cost that way probably wouldn't cost that much.

Alan

Jim,

You may or may not need a new compressor. The R-4 pancake job is under $150.00 rebuilt at Advance or AutoZone, so it would not be a real bad lick if you did replace it for insurance....... or you could try the old one and hope! I wasn't sure if my old compressor worked or not and bit the bullet and swapped in the rebuilt unit. It had been open for a long time and had no belt on it when I got the car.

You do need to drain the oil from the compressor and accumulator, blow out the system with shop air then flush the system with the special snake-oil, let it sit for an hour or so then blow it out with shop air. Snake oil flush is about $15.00 for a spray can full enough to do the job. (DON'T include the new $45 accumulator in the flushing!!!)

All the required seals come with the new accumulator and compressor. The accumulator is a real pain-in-the-butt to get to but doable!!! Your '79 is probably identical to my '78.

I got mine fired up and it worked like a champ......... for one day, then leaked down to zero over a weekend, so I have a pretty big leak somewhere. I got a leak test kit with freon mixed with some phosphoresent goop that glows under black light, but have not dug into it yet.

Dave

PS:

It takes about 8 oz. of oil, installed per the instructiuons with the new compresssor.