Date:         Tue, 19 Apr 94 10:54:12 CDT
Sender:       Vanagon Mailing List <vanagon@vanagon.com>
From:         Joel Walker <JWALKER@ua1vm.ua.edu>
Subject:      Re: A/C question

>Well, the weather is slowly warming up in central Massachusetts and it's
>reminding me that I need to get the A/C in my '91 Vanagon working again.
>(At the end of last summer, I noticed it was having a harder and harder
>time cooling down the interior.) I've been reading that the cost of the
>R-12 (Freon/CFC) refrigerant is being manipulated to make its cost rise
>dramatically, so I'm dreading the cost of a recharge, which of course is
>in addition to the cost of finding and fixing the leak it must have.
>Facing this repair bill, I was thinking that this is a good time to find
>out if there is an upgrade kit available to switch to the new R-134 (HFC)
>refrigerant. So, does anyone know if there is such a conversion kit
>available for the waterboxers?

my 88 bus gets hard to cool if i don't run the a/c over the winter ... it
seems to need about 20 minutes of running every couple of weeks. seems really
stupid, but it helps.

previously, i was adding two cans of freon in june of each year ... then i
found out about running it in winter. i was told that the seals in the
compressor need to be lubricated (by the running) or they'll let the freon
'escape' (where?).

r-12 may not be as expensive now ... it seems that du pont was gonna shut
down production early, but the EPA has actually kinda reversed itself and
asked them to keep it in production LONGER than 1996 ... because nobody has
come up with a good substitute or coversion kit for older cars.

as far as i know, the ONLY people who have kits for their old cars are Volvo
and Mercedes. and that's only been 'reported'. i don't know of anyone who has
done the conversion or even seen the kits.  i would rather guess that we buses
will be very much on our own ... i don't think vw will be very inclined to
put out any sort of kit for our cars. :(

joel