The car had been converted long before my purchase.
It was empty when i bought it. Previous owner told me was bad condenser...yet ive found no signs ot that.
Ive replaced a bad hose .. and expansion valve and will be replacing the dryer as well.
Ive got 36 ozs in it right now to ck operation and for any other leaks. So far...so good.
On the drive home yesterday. It was cool and comfy...but feel like it could / hope would be a little better.
I havent put a thermometer in the vent yet.
And planning to evac it back out . Change the dryer. Then pull a good vacuum on it for like an hour or so .
Was curious the anount required to recharge it. Ill start with the same 36 ozs for now and see what pressures i get.
Some people convert by draining the R12 and refilling it with R134a & Ester oil and others will drain, flush, replace the oil in the compressor sump, and replace the hoses & O-rings. It's a crap shoot how it was done if you don't do it or see it done, but no biggie.
If you run ester oil you will be fine if they didn't remove the mineral oil. When you replace the dryer if the o-rings are black they didn't replace them. Old school rubber was black. Newer HBNR are usually green but sometimes blue.
I have found that the old rubber hoses and rubber seals will leak the R134a to the tune of about 12 oz per year. This usually means that in the spring you may need to top it off and you would be good for the year.
If you are loosing more than that look for a bigger leak.
If you replace all the hoses with newer "barrier' hoses and the o-rings/seals with the new HNBR then it should hold a charge a lot longer but the oem compressor seal was made for lower pressure R12 so it may still loose pressure over time.
Good news is if you don't have a noticeable leak you should not loose any oil.
As SRT said R12 requires a license but craigslist /ebay is a good source for people who are not interested in licenses. Just sayin...
