AC 60 degrees

[bushbean]

Last summer, the A/C is ice cold. Now, it's cold but not ice cold. The vent temperature with A/C blasting is 60 degrees Fahrenheit today; outside temperature and humidity were 90 degrees and 70% humidity, respectively. The A/c, which is R12, hasn't been serviced in over 5 years. I believe a good working R12 system should be operating at around 40 degrees, so something is not right with my system. I know I'll most likely get raped if I take the car to a mechanic. What is the chance it just needs to top off on Freon? If that's the case, how much should I expect to paid? Thanks in advance.

[ahmad89]

hey does your idle drop when you turn on your a/c? mine does and its annoying, i have to turn it off when im stopped so my car wont die.

[bushbean]

hey does your idle drop when you turn on your a/c? mine does and its annoying, i have to turn it off when im stopped so my car wont die.

Do you have carb? On the carb, there is a idle boost controller thingy on the driver's side of the carb. You can adjust the shaft on this thingy to increase the idle speed when A/C is ON.

[ahmad89]

Do you have carb? On the carb, there is a idle boost controller thingy on the driver's side of the carb. You can adjust the shaft on this thingy to increase the idle speed when A/C is ON.
its a small metal screw on the back of this circle thing? yea its carb, i know what your talkin about and when i tighten or loosen it it would boost the rpms at the sweet spot. Then after i turn it off or after awhile it would stop working suddenly. Think it could be the solenoid?

[russiankid]

Odd mine blows out 40F most of the time, but sometimes it goes to 50F when it is very very hot outside.

[ahmad89]

yea so how can i fix my problem?
http://www.3geez.com/forum/showthread.php?t=60489
Help here please, dont mean to steal the thread by the way.

[MessyHonda]

at least you got 60 degree air.......i dont have shit....besides me sticking out my head going 80mph down the freeway.

i would check if you have enough R12 in the system....i bet they have gauges and stuff.

[ahmad89]

i need to do a a/c system check.

[Blkblurr]

Look at the site glass on the receiver/ dryer while the ac is running and see if you see bubbles passing by. If you do it's lost some freon.

[2oodoor]

a good rule to go by with any air cond. is that you should get a 25-35 degree difference than the ambient temp. in other words 60 degree air at 90 degrees outside is not bad. Some Automotive AC will get much more, like 40 -50 degrees difference, those are the lucky ones.
You can drop the temp more by increassing the heat exchange.. in other words, cooler condensor.. make sure you dont have debris, bugs, in condensor OR radiator fins. Make sure the engine fan and AC condensor fan under the hood are working , moving enough air thru the radiator and condensor. Excessive engine temps can reduce AC effenceincy, like a poorly cooling radiator.
Also fungus and debris in the evaporator coil inside the dash can affect duct air temp.
Also, if you always have the inside fan speed on high all the time you will not have as low duct temp because the air is going thru the evaporator so fast it is not grabbing the coldness as well as it would at low speed.
One other trick too is put an extra heater control valve on the heater hoses so that NO hot water gets into the heater core in the summer. Some cars will drop a few more degrees duct temp by doing that.
hope this helps

[Oldblueaccord]

You cant buy R12 your self so either you need some one to put freon in it or you might be able to add Freeze 12 to it.

5 years is about right really. Freon slips out over time and that seems to be about right. I think there is a chart you can look at for loss somewhere.


wp

[bushbean]

I suspect the condenser is OK because the cooling is exactly the same whether I'm waiting at the stop light or driving 70 MPH down the freeway. If the condenser is dirty, the vent temperature would be lower when the car is on the highway.

I wish I could clean the evaporator, but my understanding is that getting to it requires tearing the dashboard apart, i.e., a lot of work.

If I get a licensed A/C guy to fill up on R12 freon, I'm guessing it'll cost $250: 100 for labor and 150 for freon. Does it sound about right?

[2oodoor]

I suspect the condenser is OK because the cooling is exactly the same whether I'm waiting at the stop light or driving 70 MPH down the freeway. If the condenser is dirty, the vent temperature would be lower when the car is on the highway.

I wish I could clean the evaporator, but my understanding is that getting to it requires tearing the dashboard apart, i.e., a lot of work.

If I get a licensed A/C guy to fill up on R12 freon, I'm guessing it'll cost $250: 100 for labor and 150 for freon. Does it sound about right?
yep mighty expensive, you need to find some alternative to top off your current r12 with since it is not empty and it does work ....these cars dont hold much so it is easy to overfill, it really should be weighed as it is put in

[bushbean]

On a similar topic...
Does anyone believe in the conspiring theory that DuPont, the inventor and then patent holder of the R12 Freon, convinced the US government to switch to R134 and outlaw the service of R12 by nonlicensed people at a time when their patent on the R12 is expiring, in order to maintain their monopoly in the US refrigerant market?

Here is what one conspiracy theorist has to say about it:
http://toad.net/~jsmeenen/freon.html

[87LXiR]

Isnt R12 illegal for use and sale in california? When i first got my 3g a couple of years ago the ac blew cold, ice cold. And the next coming summer, nothing but air.

Other than some type of sticker confirming it, is there any other way to tell if your ac system has been converted to R134?Sorry dont men to thread jack but i want my ac back.

Oh and interesting read by the way bushbean

[bushbean]

Isnt R12 illegal for use and sale in california? When i first got my 3g a couple of years ago the ac blew cold, ice cold. And the next coming summer, nothing but air.
Other than some type of sticker confirming it, is there any other way to tell if your ac system has been converted to R134?Sorry dont men to thread jack but i want my ac back.
Oh and interesting read by the way bushbean

You need a license to work with R12. However, you don't need a license if you're just saling or reselling it. There is probably a black market for R12, but I'm afraid to go there because of big, bad FBI might come knocking.

There is no easy way to know for sure whether your system is R12 or R134a. Here are some hints: (1) a sticker indicated an R134a conversion, (2) R134a valve adaptors are still connnected, (3) your A/C isn't very cold. People probably don't bother with the sticker, since most conversions are done by shadetree mechanic, who, very understandably, can care less about subsequent owners. The R134a adaptors are difficult to acquire sometimes, so people might remove them after the conversion.

[2oodoor]

On a similar topic...
Does anyone believe in the conspiring theory that DuPont, the inventor and then patent holder of the R12 Freon, convinced the US government to switch to R134 and outlaw the service of R12 by nonlicensed people at a time when their patent on the R12 is expiring, in order to maintain their monopoly in the US refrigerant market?

Here is what one conspiracy theorist has to say about it:
http://toad.net/~jsmeenen/freon.html
I have not read the link yet but I am skeptical. I was in the first classes here that was required in order to get R12 license and the information really did not lead me to suspect anything quite like that.
There are a lot of lobbists in Washington with hidden agendas, hiding behing ecology though. From people who insist they are looking at the BIG picture of global warming type things, why has jet exhaust been kept out of the media so well, we have heard that diesel exhaust is a strong carcinigen as well. Just one Boeing 777 jacking around on the tarmac puts off enough exhaust to make up a year worth of a Ford Powerstroke toodling on the interstate... dont quote me on that.. lol

[Blkblurr]

change means $$$ go into someone else's hands and anytime money is involved politions and lawmakers are soon to follow. The whole global warming thing is a perfect example of this. The E85 fuel thing is another.

[bushbean]

I would differ on the issue of global warming. Global warming is unlike those other scams in that GW has been studied by genuine climate scientists all over the world (by genuine, I mean their studies have been published in climatology journals and peer reviewed and critiqued by other respected climate scientists) and that these scientists have come up with the consensus that GW is man-made with 90% certainty. Also, unlike the scientists working for DuPont, for climate scientists, which are mostly in universities, there is not a big monetary reward for making findings one way or another.

[Blkblurr]

Although this should not be in the techical section I want to say one final thing about GW. The report published recently by NASA said that since the time they have been monitoring the temp of planet earth it has risen .6 of a deg Mars has done the same thing. Global warming is real. The cause of it is not mankind, it's the sun's output. There was a documentary on TLC about a month ago where they had taken a two mile long sample of the artic ice that allowed them to look at two million years of earths history. The sample revealed that CO2 is at the lowest it's been in history. The climate changes in the past have occurred as a result of volcanic activity. They also stated that the amount of greenhouse gas that humans contribute is tiny in comparison to volcanic accivity that normally occurs and this is documented in the core sample. On the money side of GW we can now by fuel that is made of ethanol. Did you know it takes almost a gallon of gassoline or diesel to make a gallon ethanol? This fact is not public knowledge but it's being pushed on us by the ones that produce ethanol.

[bushbean]

I see white foam moving across the sight glass. I guess this means the system is low on R12.

[2oodoor]

I see white foam moving across the sight glass. I guess this means the system is low on R12.
you went off topic on your own, good discussion though
white foam means moisture, foam is not good. You can try to have some freon added, that may work for the season, may not....
ultimately you need to pull the system down, and change the filter/dryer, flush, evacuate and recharge.

[russiankid]

you went off topic on your own, good discussion though
white foam means moisture, foam is not good. You can try to have some freon added, that may work for the season, may not....
ultimately you need to pull the system down, and change the filter/dryer, flush, evacuate and recharge.
Oh man i see some white fog in mine, it's very light but still there.

[2oodoor]

Oh man i see some white fog in mine, it's very light but still there.
a little bit is fairly normal, if it is working good I wouldnt sweat the small stuff.
A good honest or shall I say generous ac shop would give some allowance for the r12 you have in the system because they suck it out and recycle it and put it back in after they change your dryer. Dont count on that happening though..

[bushbean]

Is there a difference between an "A/C shop" to a typical repair shop?