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Date:         Mon, 26 May 1997 23:15:34 -0500
Sender:       Vanagon Mailing List <vanagon@vanagon.com>
From:         John Gladu <jgladu@bcm.tmc.edu>
Subject:      alternate refrigerants will wait...

Well, I had a little bit of good luck and didn't have to change to one of the alternate refrigerants (yet). As the tale went, my usual dealer told me that the '90 GL needed a new compressor because of evidence of a leak on it and the price for the R134A conversion would be around $1500US (including the new compressor). I knew that there was a one-year-class leak (reaaaal slow), but it had never been isolated. I didn't believe that there was anything wrong with the compressor.

After searching the WWWeb for info on alternate refrigerants I visited "Cool Flow", in Houston, who is equipped to service R12, FrigC, and AutoFrost (R406A and R414A). I was impressed. They run a very nice shop and were both honest and straightforward with me.

(What I mean by that is that you can be honest - truthful and factual - without coming close to telling the whole story. Jim, the second-in-command that I worked with, was straightforward with the reason that it costs so damned much to get service on the Vanagon's A/C. He said they can do four or five "easy" cars in the time it would take to do a thorough job on a Vanagon and it just isn't financially feasible for them to charge the same amount. They have a "busy" season and a "dead" season (winter) and they have to make enough money in the "busy" season to tide them through the hibernation months. Even if this news sucks for the Vanagon owner, it made fiscal sense to me and I appreciated hearing why it cost so much.)

Jim checked the remaining pressure in the system (about 70psi static) and had me crank up the engine and A/C. The clutch on the compressor never kicked in. He added a small amount of R12 to boost the pressure and the clutch still didn't cycle. He went off to deal with the phones and I found the A/C pressure switch and disconnected the electrical plug. Oil came out of the plug housing. ?!? When I showed this to Jim he said that there was probably a leak in the switch and the pressure was shoving the mineral oil through the wires, inside the insulation, into the switch housing. All of the other evidence pointed to this as well. Shorted around the switch and the clutch kicked in.

A new A/C switch was a mere $110US at the dealer... :-0

Took off the old one, and instead of finding a Schrader valve, found a bubbling mass of caked-up reddish-brown gunk. I chiseled some out with a small screwdriver and then put the old switch back on...

Jim said that this was likely escaped dessicant from the dryer. He cleaned out the valve housing. He also removed the high-pressure Schrader valve as well (just an inch up-stream of the pressure switch on mine) to check for contamination there, and found none. Put new Schraders in both, installed the new pressure switch and started vacuuming the lines...

At this point it would have been nice to perform a complete leak-check, but he described to me what this would entail in order for it to be truly "complete". We'd have to take down the overhead unit in order to give it a thorough check. Nope. Uh-uh. I didn't have time for that.

So he recharged the system and we crossed our fingers.

After the recharge it worked. Clutch kicked in. It cooled. But it didn't cool very well. He suspected that there might be some dessicant jamming the expansion valve OPEN. It would cool, but it wouldn't cool in an efficient manner. Replacement would require taking down the overhead unit... *sigh*

He said that there was a remote chance that the jam might just unjam with time (what we in Network Services call "spontaneous auto-correction"), and I agreed that that was the thing to do, for the moment. (As it turned out, the system DID start to cool well over the past weekend, so I got reaaaallly lucky this time).

Total damages: $110 for the switch, $50 for the electrical diagnosis and $145 for the evacuation and recharge. Still an "ouch", but 20% of what I'd been quoted at the dealer.

What else...

Jim says that the Vanagons have nitrile hoses in the A/C system and that replacing the refrigerant with anything other than R12 and R134A would require replacing the hoses with the "barrier" kind. Expensive...

I whole-heartedly recommend this shop. Expensive - yes. But honest, knowledgeable and thorough. (And willing to let me do some of the work and kibbitz...) They'll work on any vehicle with A/C.

Cool Flow NW Houston, near the NorthWest Mall (290 at 610) 4803 Ramus Houston, TX 77092-8016 713-688-7525

Disclaimer: I don't work for them. None of my family or friends do either. They earned my recommendation, and that isn't easy...

bcnu - Grungy (John Gladu) (Houston, TX) Opinions are just that INTERNET: jgladu@bcm.tmc.edu VOICE: 713-997-1117 '60 dddPanel walk-thru (The Bozobus)-----resting - melting 1600dp---- '89 Vanagon GL----------------------------good!----------------------- '90 Vanagon GL----------------------------good!----------------------- '68 & '69 Bugs--(Frunobulax & Bertha)-----on vacation (engineless)----


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