DIY car A/C gas top up ??

I have just read that a car owner can now "top up" the refrigerant gas in the car Air Conditioning system. Just like 'old days' - no need for expensive A/C techs and A/C shops. The "old" CFC gas type R-12 is no longer in use; it has been replaced by a gas, type R-134. This new refrigerant can be added to a cars A/C system simply by using a kit which consists of fittings, cans of R-134 and a hose with adaptor. All of this according to JBABS Air conditioning, and a pamphlet downloaded from a US web site. Question: where can this kit be purchased in the UK ?, or elsewhere in Europe ??

Reply to
John Hewitt
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ISTR the old stuff has to be pulled out by the machine the Air con specialists have. Presumably some EU rule and why there's no such thing as DIY air con top up here.

Reply to
Doki

snip

My understanding is that for best life of the A/C unit, you need to suck out the old stuff because of water contamination etc., and then refill with a weighed amount of new gas & lubricant. (R12 was much less fussy about being over-filled etc.) But I'm no expert - I was just totally amazed at the cavalier way in which R12 was handled when I had my car re-gassed some years ago.

Reply to
Malcolm Stewart

Malcolm> My understanding is that for best life of the A/C unit,

You mean, more than the next two weeks.....

Malcolm> you need to suck out the old stuff because of water Malcolm> contamination etc., and then refill with a weighed amount Malcolm> of new gas & lubricant.

That's right, and the tolerance on the amount is very small. For my large car (see the link below) it's 1,250g plus or minus 50g. So unless you have the equipment to evacuate the current gas and inject a weighed quantity of gas and measured quantity of oil then leave it to a professional.

Most areas are covered by mobile professionals who will do the recharge for between 50 and 80 quid depending on how much of their business appears on their tax returns. With this low cost, it's hardly worth spending money on equipment to DIY, especially on something that should only need doing every 5 years or so.

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Reply to
AndyC the WB

That's quite common in the US, where the gas is sold in hardware stores. Not so in the UK - there are tighter rules.

Reply to
TimM

bullshit you need to put in the right amount of gas, so unless it comes with a kit to remove the old gas, vac the system out to get rid of the water build-up, add the new gas and the oil it needs to lubricate (and the dye to make sure it shows up when it leaks) then I would say it's some crazy yank way to get money out of the gullible

Reply to
dojj

Yanks have had AC a lot longer. Refilling AC's not that difficult, you do need to use a vacuum pump & you do need to use scales, you do need to put the oil in as well as the refrigerant but it's not rocket science.

Reply to
Duncan Wood

Well, just topping it up will get many systems working normally again. Think of it as topping up oil in an engine - you can do that as well as changing it.

The difference is in the US, kits to do this can be bought cheaply and done at *your* convenience. UK topping up tends to involve either waiting around for a mobile - *if* you can find one, or taking the car to a specialist for a day and paying 100 quid just to be told its leaking...

Reply to
Dave Plowman

need to use a vacuum pump & you do need to use scales, you do need to put the oil in as well as the refrigerant but it's not rocket science.

but they've been using R134 for a lot longer as well, so don't need to worry about polluting the atmosphere as much as we do over here in the good old U.S. of E.

Reply to
dojj

Reply to
John Hewitt

Ebay's the cheapest solution. Vacuum pumps are fairly common on there or you can make one out of a fridge compressor. For a good start

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Reply to
Duncan Wood

Are you talking about an older car which used to run on R12, or not?

You can go for something like RS24, which is a blend of R134a and other gases, designed for compressors that run on mineral oil. Not all places deal with these blends, however. Some will only want to sell you R134a.

BE WARNED that R134a may not work with an R4 compressor that runs on mineral oil - the oil is not miscible with R134a and may sludge. A newer compressor, with a sump, will be fine with R134a. So, R134a is not really a replacement for R12 in all circumstances.

It's illegal (and possibly explosive) to mix different refrigerants. It's illegal to mix anything with R12, and all R12 must be disposed of under licence. Not all garages that do aircon servicing will have R12 disposal facilities. Also, the downside of using blended gases like RS24 is that it is illegal to top-up such systems. This is because the different components will leak at different rates depending on molecule size, etc. Blended gases must be evacuated and refilled from empty so that the system always contains the right proportion of blend components.

I've been looking into this so that I can get the aircon on my SD1 Vitesse working - it has apparently been in a discharged state for 3 years and was last filled with R12. The Harrison compressor is not likely to last long with the sort of oil that is compatible with R134a, and I am planning to try RS24. I may or may not need to replace the hoses and seals.

Michael

Reply to
Michael Kilpatrick

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