Date:         Mon, 7 Jun 1999 14:50:33 EDT
Reply-To:     KENWILFY@AOL.COM
Sender:       Vanagon Mailing List <vanagon@gerry.vanagon.com>
From:         KENWILFY@AOL.COM
Subject:      Adventures in Air Conditioning!!!
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii"

Well as an unsuspecting citizen I went to the local Napa to get some cans of
R134a to do a few airconditioning conversions this past Saturday (getting
ready for this weeks heatwave which is already upon us).  After getting
several cans of R134a one of the guys asks me if I would be interested in
this new, drop-in replacement for R-12 that they had.  I said well let me
take a look, so they brought out a can.  It is called "Freeze 12" and is not
propane based (like almost all the other alternative refrigerants) but is 80%
R-134a and 20% some other refrigerant that lowers the pressure of the R-134a
system and makes it work better.  Something in the back of my mind said "Buy
the whole case!" but I just bought enough to get my mothers Jetta Turbo
Diesel back in business.  I went home, put it in her system (which was almost
totally empty) and it works great!!!  It was 75 degs and she was blowin' 40
degs out of the register with the fan on the highest setting.  You only use
about 90% of what you would normally would use of R-12 so 3 cans (at only $6
each) did her car no problem.  You are supposed to use special fittings and
blah, blah, blah on this stuff like you do on R-134a (no oil change or o-ring
change though) but I couldn't get the special tap you need for the top of the
can and Napa didn't have the special fittings.  So I just used a
side-piercing tap, and my R-12 gauge set and put it right in with no problem.


Anyway it worked so well that I wanted to get some more today so that I could
do my Grandmother's car and my parent's van.  Well today they tell me that I
need a license to buy the stuff and that they can't sell it to me without
one.  So the little voice was right I should have bought it all on Saturday,
but I think I am going to get a licence so that I can start using this stuff.
 It is made by Johnson's the same people who make the Ester Oil for the
R-134a systems so it is not fly-by-night stuff, and I can get a licence for
$60.  That way if you have a system (like most people) that is just low on
R-12 and no major leaks or problems, you can just blow this stuff in there
without flushing the system, changing the dryer, changing o-rings, etc. and
get really cold A/C out of it (which is another problem with R-134a is that
it doesn't get as cold as R-12).  I am really excited about this new stuff
after doing a few R-134a conversions which were a pretty big pain and not
getting as good of a temperature difference as I would like out of the system
after you get all done.

I'll keep the list posted on how I make out with this stuff.
Ken Wilford
Van-Again
John 3:16