The Stupid Vanagon A/C System

Man I hate the A/C system and I mean HATE. What a P.O.S. It's an afterbirth of engineering. A hanging doghouse and leaky rubber hoses running to the moon and back. Well here is what I had going on, the compressor was growling, I mean its only 20 years old I should write VW and beaach ...and it never worked good anyway...so I thought it was time for some abuse.

Well I got the compressor swapped out, installed a new dryer, looked at the lines they were good, even had a new line going to the dryer to the compressor. I had a vacuum pulled with my vacuum pump for 2 hours(30 mins is good enough), it held so that was all good.

I charged the lines with one can of Red-Tek Pro-seal, and then finished it off with Red-Tek R12a

Well it would only get down to 45-50 psi , well I'm now thinking I over-charged the system, it's easy to do the Red-Tek, it's more sensitive on pressures compared to 134a. I released some of the gas...well the pressure didn't go down....alllll shite...you got to be kidding me. A clogged expansion valve or system? , UGH! 

Well I'm done for awhile, and punt...then while on the Samba board Terry K , posted some fantastic information , so this is from his post, that and we had a record heat wave of 104f, I parked the van and was using the Jetta for road trips, the mistress was just sitting in the driveway, smirking at me...

anyway here is what Terry posted...

 
"Remove both the lines at the compressor.

Load up the low side with air dryer alcohol.
Blow it through till the snot comes out the high side hose.

Reverse this act filing up the high side, and blowing it back through the low side hose.

Jump back a foot.

A lot of crap will blow outa the hoses.
Bolt it all back up, and suck it down, and reload."

So that post put wind under my sails again, I ordered a flush gun on eBay, got some dryer alcohol and ordered some can of Red-tek....time to roll up my sleeves and kick this things arse.

So here ya go...you need to do it to yours too!

Tools needed:

Big crescent wrench, vacuum pump, a/c flush gun, 134a gauges

Material:

Air dryer alcohol, Red-Tek r12-a

PICTURES COMING SOON STAY TUNED