Sanden compressor question

- J
- Jason67RMod
  
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posted
19 years ago

Tue, Sep 7, 2004 1:19 AM

Hello all,

In the future, I will try to stay out of political or emotionally charged discussions. It's hard sometimes, you get wrapped up, and you have painful memories and have experienced loss from certain things, like other people have. I'm really here to talk about Mustangs, and learn, and contribute what I can, so that's what I'm going to do.

I have a Vintage Air R134a system in my car, and recently bought a recharge kit for it. I presumed the low-end side on the compressor would match the fitting size on the recharge bottle / kit, but in fact it fit the HIGH-END side. If it weren't low enough, I think the damned thing might have blown my fingers off, because it shot the gauge over

100 (psi?), way into the red zone on the little gauge.

I thought hand-grenade kits were a thing of the past, those old R12 Schrader valve setups were known for causing terrible injuries...

What gives? I checked, and it seems this is the size ALL of them have. Could the people who put the thing in have possibly screwed it up and switched it around??? I wouldn't think so, but I'm not sure...

Thanks, peace...

- B
- Backyard Mechanic
  
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posted
19 years ago

Wed, Sep 8, 2004 2:57 AM

Jason67RMod opined

I never heard of the schrader fittings hurting anyone who knew - AND PAID ATTENTION to - what they were doing.

Tell me this, was the compressor running when you attempted the hookup?

100 lbs is nothing in a warm engine compartment. Look at the temp/pressure tables! 158 lbs at 115 deg!!!!

And that's the static pressure at 115 deg if there's ANY refrigerant in the system

Here's how you do it...if you are connecting a full set of gauges, you connect the high side with compressor off, preferably in a cool engine compartment, and the low side with compressor running.

With a simple kit, you connect ONLY to the low side - with compressor running

And you ALWAYS verify that you're hooking to the low side...by tracing the routing, not by the size of the valve.

- 6
- 67RMod
  
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posted
19 years ago

Wed, Sep 8, 2004 5:05 AM

I never had any problems... I paid very close attention, and did this operation several times on vehicles of mine with these valvies

Yes...

Ok...

That's the thing... two different sized fittings, I thought it was idiot-proof. But apparently not. I did follow the directions on the canister, come to think of it. The engine was basically cold; I disconnected the choke and just had it warm enough to idle stably with the compressor running. Part of the reason was it was almost 100 degrees that day ;)

Well, as I said, there were two different fittings, and my presumption was that the industry had decided to make one size "high" and one size "low" and make it idiot-proof by making the recharge kits only fit the low side due to people blowing fingers off with the old kits.

It's ironic that I actually paid less attention this time than I did when I used to charge my old R12 systems, and could have hurt myself. Point taken; lesson learned.

Thanks for the response.