As if my luck couldn't even!

[BLAKE]

You just need to replace every other car with another ratty SN95 rally car.

[4bangen]

I hope you mother fuckers are amused... because that would be the only positive to this horse shit! Tomorrows my wife's birthday so she took a few days off. was on her way home from getting my kids physical for school sports and this jack ass slams into the side of her crossing traffic. out of date license, expired insurance, and starts spouting off that it was her fault. He had a stop sign and she didn't. Cop let the guy go without running his info. I was stuck at work so I couldn't do a damn thing to make sure things got done. Cop ran his insurance an hour later and realized he was driving illegally. Told me he's going to mail him a summons for the charge of driving uninsured, and if he doesn't respond it will go to warrant. but he also didn't design But here we go again. for those keeping track, the grey car has now been hit 3 times (twice not by uninsured drivers, and hailed on twice, the white car was hit 4 times, (once by an under insured driver) and the 83 ranger has been hit twice. Oh and if you are old school enough to remember my 88 tbird was rear ended and totaled. mind you in only two of these accidents where our cars moving. the rest we where parked or sitting in traffic.

[4bangen]

I’ll post pics of my new ranger tomorrow. I literally bought a truck and got the flu the next day.

[Big A]

Going to go drive this tomorrow. If I like it, and the deal works out I'll trade the cursestang in on it. Also going to drive a 4x4 in comparison. It would be nice to have a 4 door. I've only owned one since my daughter has been alive. lol

I had the 4x4 rig as a rental this past week, and was underwhelmed. Didn't do anything but drive to the hotel and back to the airport, and even then it was noisy, sluggish, and had a super bouncy ride. Hopefully the 2x is a way better highway truck.

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[4bangen]

Going to go drive this tomorrow. If I like it, and the deal works out I'll trade the cursestang in on it. Also going to drive a 4x4 in comparison. It would be nice to have a 4 door. I've only owned one since my daughter has been alive. lol

[shumpertdavid]

They might buy a new evaporator core, but replacing it is usually a pretty hefty undertaking. Most all newer vehicles (by newer I mean mid 90's and up) require the dash to be removed to access the HVAC housing for replacement.

My recommendations come from doing repair work for others and our experience with part failures and what's required by the parts suppliers for part warranty. If a person specifies they just want a compressor installed and they don't want the additional expense, I will do that in most cases. They also get a big fat NO WARRANTY on their ticket as I'm not eating the parts the parts store won't cover.

[Gasser64]

Aside from a disconnect tool or something like that, you should be able to replace the basic parts with tools in your driveway. Flushing of the lines and evaporator core are recommended if you've had a mechanical failure (most of the new style evaporator cores are built like the condensers and they recommend they be replaced as well), but you can do the parts swapping (make sure to add the proper amounts of pag oil to the compressor and condenser before installation) and then just have a shop perform the vacuum and fill procedure.

Given the price of those parts, most people probably just buy new and toss the old ones in the aluminum scrap pile. To be hauled off and sold to the scrap yard several years later. Imo it's better to have a new part, than have a cleaned up old part that may develop a pin hole a year later.

[Rick Modena]

You didn't change anything else? mine started groaning with engine rpm, then quit on me. I asume you have to replace the dryer and orifice tube and stuff along with it right?

Sorry, never saw this post.

NO, I did not change anything other than the compressor, mine simply locked up, not noise no nothing. It just quit working, I had a 2012 5.0 and they were failing because of the "stretchy belt" that put to much tension on the compressor pulley neck.
I just changed the compressor because when I took my lines off there was no metal shavings/trash in the lines, not even in the oil that came out.
I re-installed it, pulled a vacuum for a couple of hours, it held on the gauges and I refilled with 134a and of course PAG oil in the compressor. It worked the rest of the summer and it continues to run to this day.

[4bangen]

I'll be moving in a few months hopefully, Time to get out of the little crap rental house I've been in for the last 11 years. Tentative plan now is after the move if I can get a decent trade on the Blanca Pinata, I'm going to swap it out for a new 4 door ranger. I'll drive that for a few years until the kid gets her license and hand it over to her. After that I'll just swap between the van, ranger, and Buick for my daily commute. Or hell by that point I might ditch those 3 cars and get something like a GT350, or something else I never knew I wanted.
I like the look of the new Ranger, and we really need a 4 door anyway. This seems like the best plan as of right now. I'll miss my little demolition derby car, but at the same time I wont.

Then again maybe I won't get rid of it. my mind goes back and forth every other time I drive it. I'm going to have to decide something before summer, and the lack of A/C starts really sucking.

[shumpertdavid]

Aside from a disconnect tool or something like that, you should be able to replace the basic parts with tools in your driveway. Flushing of the lines and evaporator core are recommended if you've had a mechanical failure (most of the new style evaporator cores are built like the condensers and they recommend they be replaced as well), but you can do the parts swapping (make sure to add the proper amounts of pag oil to the compressor and condenser before installation) and then just have a shop perform the vacuum and fill procedure.

[4bangen]

Compressor, drier, and expansion valve would be my recommendation at minimum and I'd recommend a condenser as well. Any debris, trash, compressor guts that comes out of the compressor goes into the condenser. The passages are small and it doesn't flow through like a long snake as condensers did back with r12. The parallel flow condenser in newer cars don't flush. Here's a youtube video that gives a quick explanation, though no very in depth it gets the point across. The second link gives you a better look at how the flushing is not nearly effective enough. Even with the machine they are advertising in the video, it doesn't give a solid flow of liquid through all of the paths.

In regards to filling the system yourself, I'd recommend at least letting a shop do the refill with an A\c machine to ensure you get the correct charge amount. R-134-A doesn't blend or mix with the refrigerant oil like R-12 did. The liquid R-134-A picks the oil up and carries it in suspension as it moves through the system. In a gaseous state it will move a little oil but it's minimal. The point of this is to explain that when the charge amount is off by as little as 10% of system capacity it can reduce system lubrication by 40-50%. The reason is because the lower refrigerant charge amount will cause the evaporator to hold excessive oil when the liquid turns into a gaseous state before it can exit the outlet side. This is in an orifice tube system with an accumulator mounted after the evaporator. An expansion valve/block system operates a little different, but the concept is still the same. You end up with oil accumulation in the evaporator (it doesn't need any lubrication there), and a compressor that is starved of oil (the only part that relies on lubrication to survive.

I'm not here to argue that you can't do it at home, that you won't be able to get the charge amount with in that 10% window of full without actually overfilling the sytem, or that you can't save the money of the a\c service. I'm simply trying to inform you that it"s difficult to do and trying to charge R-134-A based solely on pressures doesn't accurately provide assurance of correct charging because R-134-A pressures are strongly affected by outside temperatures, humidity levels, etc. The same goes for vacuuming the sytem down. You need to be able to pull a minimum of 29.5" of vacuum and I'd recommend at least an hour and a half on a system replacement like what you'll likely be doing, and that's on a day where the temps are 75+ and humidity is relatively low.

There's a lot of science that goes into function, pressures, how the system performs in various temperatures and weather. I understand some of it, and trust the experience and information I've been thought over the years. I have enough experience working with auto a\c to know how easy it is to have a comeback even when we do everything by the book and to the best of our abilities and equipment. I'd hate to gamble the longevity of the repair and parts on saving the cost of a condenser and the cost of an a\c service and fill.

1800Radiator.com has pretty fair pricing on kits. I can't vouch for the quality of the parts as I try to buy through my local parts stores so if I need to warranty something or have issues I can handle in the same day most times, but I've used the radiators and condensers in years past without issue.

That was very informative. I've always steered clear of A/C in the past, maybe I should stick to that rule. lol

[shumpertdavid]

Compressor, drier, and expansion valve would be my recommendation at minimum and I'd recommend a condenser as well. Any debris, trash, compressor guts that comes out of the compressor goes into the condenser. The passages are small and it doesn't flow through like a long snake as condensers did back with r12. The parallel flow condenser in newer cars don't flush. Here's a youtube video that gives a quick explanation, though no very in depth it gets the point across. The second link gives you a better look at how the flushing is not nearly effective enough. Even with the machine they are advertising in the video, it doesn't give a solid flow of liquid through all of the paths.

In regards to filling the system yourself, I'd recommend at least letting a shop do the refill with an A\c machine to ensure you get the correct charge amount. R-134-A doesn't blend or mix with the refrigerant oil like R-12 did. The liquid R-134-A picks the oil up and carries it in suspension as it moves through the system. In a gaseous state it will move a little oil but it's minimal. The point of this is to explain that when the charge amount is off by as little as 10% of system capacity it can reduce system lubrication by 40-50%. The reason is because the lower refrigerant charge amount will cause the evaporator to hold excessive oil when the liquid turns into a gaseous state before it can exit the outlet side. This is in an orifice tube system with an accumulator mounted after the evaporator. An expansion valve/block system operates a little different, but the concept is still the same. You end up with oil accumulation in the evaporator (it doesn't need any lubrication there), and a compressor that is starved of oil (the only part that relies on lubrication to survive.

I'm not here to argue that you can't do it at home, that you won't be able to get the charge amount with in that 10% window of full without actually overfilling the sytem, or that you can't save the money of the a\c service. I'm simply trying to inform you that it"s difficult to do and trying to charge R-134-A based solely on pressures doesn't accurately provide assurance of correct charging because R-134-A pressures are strongly affected by outside temperatures, humidity levels, etc. The same goes for vacuuming the sytem down. You need to be able to pull a minimum of 29.5" of vacuum and I'd recommend at least an hour and a half on a system replacement like what you'll likely be doing, and that's on a day where the temps are 75+ and humidity is relatively low.

There's a lot of science that goes into function, pressures, how the system performs in various temperatures and weather. I understand some of it, and trust the experience and information I've been thought over the years. I have enough experience working with auto a\c to know how easy it is to have a comeback even when we do everything by the book and to the best of our abilities and equipment. I'd hate to gamble the longevity of the repair and parts on saving the cost of a condenser and the cost of an a\c service and fill.

1800Radiator.com has pretty fair pricing on kits. I can't vouch for the quality of the parts as I try to buy through my local parts stores so if I need to warranty something or have issues I can handle in the same day most times, but I've used the radiators and condensers in years past without issue.

[Big A]

yes

I had the one in my '17 replaced under warranty, no groaning noise though, I'd have to pull the invoice to see what exactly was fixed.

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[4bangen]

Is AC failure common on the 15 and newer cars?

yes

[cool cat]

Is AC failure common on the 15 and newer cars?