quadnie

First off, if you car is a 1995 or later, you have 134a refridgerant in it, which is ozone friendly; otherwise it is R12. You can tell by the shape of the caps on the lower pressure side, R134a is bigger then the R12, if it has color coded caps then it has been retrofitted to 134a. So if you do have 134a I would just vent it, probably some law that says you shouldn't but do what you want to. Don't be all afraid of it, it's not going to bite you or burn you, just use the screwdriver method, wear gloves, breath away from the valve.

Second, the a/c shops shouldn't charge you to take your freon. Yes they are using their expensive extractor machine to get it, but hey, that's FREE FREON that they can charge the next guy who needs a refill $30 a pound for. Call around, I would suspect that they would be more then happy to take a full charge of R12 from someone.


Yes, the R12 does deplete the ozone but it's not like your car venting is gonna perpetuate the greenhouse effect. Now if every R12 charged compressor vented at once, yes we would be fucked. Just like how Allstate should have the motto "don't all die at once or we will go broke". Any freon kills brain cells, but then again so does TV.

If you are R12 powered, when you have your ---- apart, I would flush it so you can retrofit when it goes back in. The problem with R12 vs 134a is the oils used for lubricating the compressor and such are opposite on the pH scale so they create hydrochloric acid which will eat the o-rings and pretty much ---- your entire system.

There are other freon classes out there, like R11 used in commercial refridgerators, R134a was made by the same tree hugging lobbiests who enforced the catalytic converters in post 1975 cars. If it wasn't for the fact that R12 is too damn expensive and getting hard to find, I wouldn't retrofit all the cars around me. R12 performs a lot better and is at least 10 degrees cooler then the R134a. If you don't want to retrofit to 134a there are R12 alternatives (hard to find) that are compatible and ozone friendly like Freeze 12 or Hot Shot.

2 weeks ago I ripped the entire a/c system out of a wrecked car I was salvaging parts from, it was retrofitted.. but I was going to vent it either way (it only had a light charge). Make sure to use the correct size metric wrenches (line wrenches would work even better) for removing the pressure hosing, those are aluminum nuts that will strip easily.. I've fucked up my share of a/c lines in my time.

hey, you could always just huff it and ---- your pants and be stupid - LOL

-ryan

projekteg

cool, i had r134a, i didn't hurt the ozone

baldur

Air conditioning units leak all the time, I worked for a refrigeration shop and every summer we'd have a bunch of cars coming for a refill because the seals dry out during the winter when the AC isn't used, then the system just leaks out.
And yes, R12 is precious these days, a kickass refrigerant for medium pressure systems and it's illegal to make it these days. There are direct replacements for R12, called R401A and R401B which are compatible with the mineral oils used with R12, but 134 requires synthetic oil (Polyol ester oil)

Justin_Sane420

one car probably wont "hurt the ozone" but then again within this thread theres like 15 cars that compounded the damage. dont be a ------ moron. i hope you get caught doing it. and have fun paying the fines

quadnie

wow, just think of how many trees you could have been out hugging instead of writing in this thread

XDEep

wtf how the hell are you going to get caught pressing a button on your car? haha

projekteg

i hope you get caught shoving your ***** up your *** and have fun being humiliated, you can't hide something like that forever

quadnie

LOL

ha ha, I should have been a dick and just straight up said something like that.

come on, it's just freon, we do worse things to the earth every day, I bet over half the people on this website are running test pipes? I know 100% of any of the cars I work on do

Dr.Boost

Test pipe? My exhaust is about 2 feet long, and a test pipe isn't involved.
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quadnie

See, that's what I'm talking about.

No, I've never purchased a test pipe, why spend the money when I can just fabricate my own?

I usually drop the cat out, gut it, then weld a piece of pipe straight thru it so the exhaust gasses don't bow up and create unwanted back pressure. It looks like it has a cat installed, doesn't really change the sound of the exhaust (with using stock mufflers) plus I don't live in an emissions area.

When found my brother his '97 eclipse gst the very first thing I did to that all stock car was that little trick. Man, the best mod you could do to a turbo, the thing made really good power, the little T25 would spool up so fast, and for the first time I actually heard that turbo whine (louder then most small disel turbos too). Only down side would be the 2nd o2 sensor keeps throwing a CEL but that's no big deal, I need to make an o2 simulator for it.. anyone have the plans to build one myself?