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if you are pretty sure you dont have a leak this is what i did... the wires going to the high side cut off valve(the insulation came off and the wires crossed, so the valve would not cut off.. high pressure and the high pressure service valve blew.... i ordered another valve for $20 from the dealer and then went to auto zone and bought two cans of R-134A and a $19.00 service hose with a small meter on it to put some r-134 in it.. I have an old vacuum pump for the old R-12 system but it does not fit the new R134 hoses... so i just put some freon in the low pressure side and then let the R-134 blow out the high pressure service valve..... this got the air out... i then kept adding the freon in until the compressor finally came on and started pumping..... in no time one can was empty... i then attached the second can and it continued to charge up and the compressor stopped clicking off/on/off/on..........
just about finished the second can and it seemed like it had enough freon in it as the inside of the car was cold as can be expected.... that was about three months ago.. so far no problems... still works pretty good.....
when the old freon blew out the valve it did hot have any oil with it.. i checked around and did not find any on the lining of the hood or other engine parts so i did not have to worry about any oil loss.......
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Originally posted by dbird:
if you are pretty sure you dont have a leak this is what i did... the wires going to the high side cut off valve(the insulation came off and the wires crossed, so the valve would not cut off.. high pressure and the high pressure service valve blew.... i ordered another valve for $20 from the dealer and then went to auto zone and bought two cans of R-134A and a $19.00 service hose with a small meter on it to put some r-134 in it.. I have an old vacuum pump for the old R-12 system but it does not fit the new R134 hoses... so i just put some freon in the low pressure side and then let the R-134 blow out the high pressure service valve..... this got the air out... i then kept adding the freon in until the compressor finally came on and started pumping..... in no time one can was empty... i then attached the second can and it continued to charge up and the compressor stopped clicking off/on/off/on..........
just about finished the second can and it seemed like it had enough freon in it as the inside of the car was cold as can be expected.... that was about three months ago.. so far no problems... still works pretty good.....
when the old freon blew out the valve it did hot have any oil with it.. i checked around and did not find any on the lining of the hood or other engine parts so i did not have to worry about any oil loss.......
FWIW, you broke the law letting the refrigerant intentionally vent to atmosphere. If caught, you could have a $50,000 Fine. Plus, if someone turned you in, I believe there is a bounty/reward. I doubt you will caught(I hope your not), but just wanted to make clear that your way is illegal and environmentally unsound and unnecessary. A 6 yr. old in Fla was cited for running an illegal business, ie: lemonade stand and was turned in for no reward by an irate neighbor. Imagine if that neighbor seen you and turned you in for a reward.
While your way works, so does kidnapping a certified A/C repairman and forcing him (or her) to repair your car at gunpoint. It works, but is illegal.
Second, while you put a usable amount of r-134a in the system, had you accidently overcharged it, you could of had a system rupture or relief valve blow off. If liquid r-134a contacts skin or eyes, you can be severly burned (Yes, burned by cold) or blinded. If someone on this board does this and does not stop adding r-134a at the right time, they could be injured. It is not in our best interest to recommend unsafe and dangerous ways of repairing our cars. This is like telling someone to climb under a jacked up vehicle without using jackstands. The danger of the car falling off the jack is high and just because someone did it without the car killing them does not make it a good way to do it. I am not preaching- nevermind, I AM preaching, but I think it is worthwhile to discourage unsafe and/or illegal practices. The site has a street racing discussion ban for this same reason.
My name is Richard. I was a Contouraholic.
NOW: '02 Mazda B3000 Dual Sport, Black
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So .. the performance of the system is sub par ..
I can start it .. and it blows cool .. but not cold ..
perhaps this is all because I have not vacuumed the system
1) for 30 minutes
2) at at least ~ 30 in. Hg
(Mercury or quicksilver[from the Roman god Mercury], metallic chemical element; symbol Hg [Lat. hydrargyrum=liquid silver]; at. no. 80; at. wt. 200.59; m.p. -38.842°C; b.p. 356.58°C; sp. gr. 13.55 at 20°C; valence +1 or +2. Mercury was discovered in antiquity, and was known to the ancient Chinese, Hindus, and Egyptians, but was not recognized as an element. It was used as a medicine by Paracelsus. It was first recognized as a chemical element (in the modern sense) by A. L. Lavoisier about the end of the 18th cent.
[ Sorry about the above but I wanted to verify that Hg was the proper element symbol] - as long as we're all getting
advanced discussion regarding AC, why not !?
And since we're learning things , why not the vacuum
discourse as well ?
vacuum, theoretically, space without matter in it. A perfect vacuum has never been obtained; the best man-made vacuums contain less than 100,000 gas molecules per cc, compared to about 30 billion billion (30?1018) molecules for air at sea level. The most nearly perfect vacuum exists in intergalactic space, where it is estimated that on the average there is less than one molecule per cubic meter. In ancient times the belief that ??nature abhors a vacuum? was held widely and persisted without serious question until the late 16th and early 17th cent., when the experimental observations of Galileo and the Italian physicist Evangelista Torricelli demonstrated its essential fallacy. Torricelli obtained a nearly perfect vacuum (Torricellian vacuum) in his mercury barometer. A common but incorrect belief is that a vacuum causes ??suction.? Actually the apparent suction caused by a vacuum is the pressure of the atmosphere tending to rush in and fill the unoccupied space. There are various methods for producing a vacuum, and several different kinds of vacuum pumps. have been devised for removing the molecules of gas or vapor from a confined space. In the rotary oil-sealed pump a rotor turning in a cylinder allows gas to enter through an inlet valve from a space to be evacuated and then pushes it through an outlet valve into the atmosphere. In the oil or mercury diffusion pump, gas enters the pump through an inlet and is then swept toward an outlet by heavy, fast-moving oil or mercury vapor molecules. The outlet is connected to a rotary pump that expels the gas into the atmosphere. A cryogenic pump removes gas from a container by condensing the gas molecules on an extremely cold surface in the container. An ion pump consists of a chamber containing a source of electrons that are used to bombard gas molecules from a container to be evacuated. Collisions between the electrons and gas molecules ionize the molecules, causing them to be drawn to, and held by, a collector in the pump. The first vacuum pump was invented by the German physicist Otto von Guerricke in 1650. There are many practical applications of vacuums in industry and scientific research, e.g., in vacuum distillation, vacuum processing of food, in devices such as the vacuum tube, vacuum bottle, and barometer, and in research machines.
3]
I observed with my UV pen light and goggles last night that there is trace r134A around the seal area , I can see a ring around the spring, but this could be from the previous UV charge as stuff spilled out when I pulled the connector apart to replace the O-rings -
As others' have posted, the performance of the system is sub-par without the removal of air and water vapor from the closed system -- until I have eliminated the most obvious
methods (vacuuming system as part of the procedure when a part is replaced) I shouldn't presume the system is good.
I haven't done anything at the high side port of the system,
in fact the cap was missing & I have it taped up with electrical tape. Is this bad ? Does it need the special cap to be able to expel at certain times ?
So, I have this old refrigerator pump -- It is more like a 1/2 HP motor belt driving what looks like a air compressor cylinder (they made them like this in the 50's I believe - the newer ones have a more efficient rotary pump) ..
I will play with it and dump tons of time into making fittings to be able to suck the system dry .. because, this must be the last line of defense this system has in not working ! Boy I'm learning alot, don't have much of a life, but just really making headway on making a mess.
its just a car to get from pt a to b
usually it does it nicely --AIM: chronon1
95 Tour SE, 2.5 lliter 24V DOHC V6, 5 speed manual
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This is what we use at Carrier for LARGE machinery:  You can read about it here: Vacuum Pump Robinaire makes lighter duty vac. Pumps and those are used more by automotive and residential repair people.
My name is Richard. I was a Contouraholic.
NOW: '02 Mazda B3000 Dual Sport, Black
BEFORE: '99 Contour SE Sport
Duratec ATX Spruce Green
PIAA 510's, Foglight MOD, K&N Drop-in
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Originally posted by Contouraholic:
This is what we use at Carrier for LARGE machinery:
{Image & Link}
Robinaire makes lighter duty vac. Pumps and those are used more by automotive and residential repair people.
Torr! Torr! Torr!? or Tora! Tora! Tora!? 
Where I worked, we had high vacuum deposition systems and used high vacuum pumps like this one to test the chamber plumbing for leaks. It was neat to connect one of these to a glass bell jar with a little dish of H2O in it and watch the water start to boil, at room temp, as the vacuum approached pressures of only a few microns (0.001 mm).
Water vapor is one of the toughest things to pump and on humid days, pump-down times lengthened significantly when working in uncontrolled, high humidity areas.
If you can get your hands on an old, working refrigerator compressor (watch out, some really, really old systems used Ammonia or SO2 for the refrigerant gas), you can use it as a A/C vacuum pump as long as you squirt a little refrigerant oil into it from time to time (use PAG oil for R-134a systems). They'll pull enough vacuum to dry the system out.
Last edited by KurtD; 06/28/03 09:03 PM.
'95 Contour SE, MTX, Champagne
'03 EB Expedition, Med Wedgewood Blue
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We use these high capacity pumps because the systems we work on hold as much as 20,000 lbs (Twenty Thousand) of refrigerant.
We don't use 12oz cans. For the large systems a tractor trailer tank truck pulls up. For our "Smaller" systems we use 1 tonners (2000 lbs) and for our little stuff we use 125 lb capacity cylinders. Some places you can't get a truck to or get the 1 ton cylinders in so we use lots of 125 lber's.
I get my refrigerant for personal use from the "leftover" condensed out of the 125lbr's.
My name is Richard. I was a Contouraholic.
NOW: '02 Mazda B3000 Dual Sport, Black
BEFORE: '99 Contour SE Sport
Duratec ATX Spruce Green
PIAA 510's, Foglight MOD, K&N Drop-in
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well i went to home depot, bought some flex tube that said 170psi rated (yes i know suck and blow have different affects on materials) .. anyway , i didnt see the tube cave in... i hooked up an automotive vacuum guage with tapered end to the tube and it was a 3/16" ID tube and kind of heated it to open it enuf to slip it onto hte copper tube of the fridge pump where I had hack sawed it free from the condensor/evaporator unit.
Anyway, after 15 min or so of quiet operation from the 1/8HP motor and pump built like a tank, the best i could get was not even 24 inches of vacuum ... This surely is not 29.9 and therefore wouldnt do the job according to the guy from NJ ....
My other idea was to use the intake of an old 3.5 HP b&s lawnmower engine not in use .. to use it's vacuum on the carburetor side to see if it gives more suck than the fridge pump ... what do you think ,?
Do I have a leak in my little rig .. will an internal combustion engine give more vacuum than the fridge pump ?
Should I get a rotary pump off a newer fridge or dehumidifier or air conditioner ?
its just a car to get from pt a to b
usually it does it nicely --AIM: chronon1
95 Tour SE, 2.5 lliter 24V DOHC V6, 5 speed manual
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JC Whitney has anj air operated "pump" (uses an ejector, a form of orifice) that is cheap $24 IIRC. This will do it.
Most recip or rotary compressors for refrigeration duty will not pull below 25in. Hg and a B&S lawn mower won't either.
It is difficult to get below 25" Hg without a purpose built vacuum device.
My name is Richard. I was a Contouraholic.
NOW: '02 Mazda B3000 Dual Sport, Black
BEFORE: '99 Contour SE Sport
Duratec ATX Spruce Green
PIAA 510's, Foglight MOD, K&N Drop-in
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Originally posted by Contouraholic:
I get my refrigerant for personal use from the "leftover" condensed out of the 125lbr's.
I wish I could get my paws on just a few lbs of R-22. After 15 or so years since its last charge goose, my home central A/C looks like it could do with just a little topping off. The sight glass has gotten a little "bubbly" this year and I don't feel like dealing with a local A/C contractor telling me "Aw, you should get this system replaced." (yeah, for $3-$4K) It's been working fine for the last 25 years - if it ain't broke, don't replace it.
I used to be able to get it from work (30 pounder leftovers), but they can't buy it anymore 'cuz no one's a certified A/C tech there and they've farmed out the A/C service to Elliot Lewis. 
'95 Contour SE, MTX, Champagne
'03 EB Expedition, Med Wedgewood Blue
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its just a car to get from pt a to b
usually it does it nicely --AIM: chronon1
95 Tour SE, 2.5 lliter 24V DOHC V6, 5 speed manual
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