Air Con

[scottgtirxxx]

Does anyone know if the new type ac gas will work in my h reg Pulsar as i understand they changed what was used due to the old type being dangerous. I had a specialist come and have a look and he said i would have to pay for him to fit a new system, was his trying to rip me off ?

 

[MORF114]

no he is prob not rying to rip you off just that the old gas r-12 cannot be mixed the new gas r-134a . some cars dont have to be changed some do.

 

[PaulB]

There IS a drop in replacement gas. Hes talkin out of his ****, i got mine regassed at an aircon place in newcastle. Cost me the grand total of £40, and its ice cold.

No change in the system is required.

 

[scottgtirxxx]

Nice one i will go and get it done ready for the summer

 

[MORF114]

From the experts.

Now that R12 is now longer available we need to look at what has to be done when it is time to recharge the system. If your car has the earlier refrigerant R12 or Freon (basically prior to 1993) and you feel that it is not performing well, let's look at the likely options.
As at the date of writing it is now virtually six years since it has been legal to have recharged the system with R12 so unless you know otherwise it has to be assumed that the car has been converted to R134a, has an alternative R12 drop-in refrigerant or still has a small amount of R12 put in six or more years ago. It is possible that it is still going adequately but you have got to be one of the lucky ones after all this time.
To recharge with a drop-in is still the cheapest option and should work perfectly adequately, almost as well as with R12. However due to the general age of the car it may well need a change of component if it has developed any leaks or has any other faults and in these cases it is probably worth changing the drier as well and possibly making the changeover to R134a. Simply with the age of the car, even if there are no other problems it is often worth changing the drier.
It is difficult to make hard and fast rules on this and it is often better to make decisions on which path to take once the vehicle has been seen and assessed and the owner has expressed his wishes as to how long he intends to keep the car.
A few compressors used on early classic cars were supposed to be unable to run with R134a, but in practice it seems that most seem able to cope. Some of the rubber hoses used on cars from the eighties or earlier are definitely a little leaky with the smaller molecule of R134a or the drop-in refrigerants so may cut down slightly on the length of time they are able to retain the charge.

As of November 2006 we have now treated very many cars that were previously R12 systems. In theory at least the system should be slightly less effective than with R12 but I am happy to report that in practice I can see no real difference with the performance of the alternative refrigerant.
Many of the fears we had in the early days of changing older R12 systems onto the drop-in replacements or R134a now seem relatively insignificant. Early cars sometimes have hoses which are not completely impervious to R134a, these can sometimes be changed but where it is not really possible the reality is frequently that the loss is fairly inconsequential anyway. In theory some of the early compressors not designed for R134a would not work correctly with the new refrigerant but in practice seem to cope adequately.
It all depends on the car owner’s attitude – whether it is just an elderly car which is going perfectly but in need of a breath of fresh gas or whether it is a much loved and pampered expensive passion.​