Discussion Forum - Northstar Chevelle Club

4-door Chevelle · Super Poster

I want to get my AC working this year!

Chris R · 2K+ Club

It could very well get expensive. Paying to have AC work done is not cheap. If you need lines made, it gets more expensive then that. If you have original lines your thinking of re-using. Think again, most likely they wont have fittings that are strong enough to make a good seal anymore after 40 years. The metal parts should seal but the crimped on rubber lines will likely be too deteriorated to keep pressure. Even if they look like they are.

4-door Chevelle · Super Poster

Yes, I do have all original everything.

dashboard · 2K+ Club

Read both Pushrod’s and Stan’s posts as they install their aftermarket A/C mods.

Chris is correct, if your trying to get a forty year old system that has not worked for a while to work, you’re going to spend a thousand bucks and still have lots of forty year old parts. Then every time one of those forty year old parts fail, and they will, you’re going to have to re-service the system.

Ask me how I know. I putzed with mine for two years before I got it right and I just disassembled it for the paint shop.

Take a serious look at aftermarket stuff.

Chris R · 2K+ Club

For starters. You mentioned your compressor puked out the back. Might as well chock up a new compressor if thats the case. Unless it blew out the high pressure release valve. In which you probably have either a restriction somewhere or the system is plugged. Also, since its an R12 system, you will need to change to the valve to work with todays R134A refrigerant(POA valve but I get it backwards sometimes).

After all is said and done, its almost cheaper to go with everything new and use a Vintage Air, Classic Auto Air or a newer style AC system just like what Pushrod is doing currently.

4-door Chevelle · Super Poster

Yea, I think it blew out the release valve as I knew the pressure in the system was a little high. The system was unprofessionally retro-fitted with the newer R134A stuff which is why it was blowing cold air, even if only for 5 minutes. I haven't found any of posts you mentioned about AC.

Dave Seitz · Mega Poster

Chris, most of the service guys I know replace the big obvious stuff first then vac it down. After they have replaced the compressor or other known component then they start single part replacement. Yes because they keep doing it one piece at a time it costs you many, many times. Darren if you really want cold air on the stock unit buy every part to replace every part, that is down to the last O Ring. It will be that one part you did not replace that will be the culprit and cause failure. As the others have said replace the entire system with a new efficient kit or pay more to have sporatic AC all summer.

SShink · 3K+ Club

Darren,

Here's the link to Pushrod's thread on installing vintage air: http://northstarchevelles.activeboard.com/t47556664/started-on-the-vintage-air/

I'm going with Classic Auto Air's kit. Either kit will run around $1500 if you in stall it yourself.

I'll post more on mine when I start in March.

4-door Chevelle · Super Poster

Realistically I cannot afford to spend $1500 so that puts me back to my good old 360 degree air. I was hoping I could find someone to work on my existing system for me maybe having a little history, do a little checking and go from there. Can anybody refer me to a person or shop for this type of work?

On the plus side, I got my new head unit finished up yesterday. It sure sounds good and accepts a USB drive so I bought a short little 4GB one at Microcenter for $8 and so far stuck like 50 CD's on it and still have room for more!

Chris R · 2K+ Club

4-door Chevelle wrote:
Realistically I cannot afford to spend $1500 so that puts me back to my good old 360 degree air. I was hoping I could find someone to work on my existing system for me maybe having a little history, do a little checking and go from there. Can anybody refer me to a person or shop for this type of work?

On the plus side, I got my new head unit finished up yesterday. It sure sounds good and accepts a USB drive so I bought a short little 4GB one at Microcenter for $8 and so far stuck like 50 CD's on it and still have room for more!

Thats good because you wont have to spend 1500. If you look around, you can find these kits for around 1000 bucks. Sometimes, even cheaper then that.

Derek69SS · Founding Member

Mine was around $1200 with some "options".

I know some shops charge around $1000 - $1200 to install one if you don't want to do it yourself.

Lost in the 60s · President

4-door Chevelle wrote:
Yea, I think it blew out the release valve as I knew the pressure in the system was a little high. The system was unprofessionally retro-fitted with the newer R134A stuff which is why it was blowing cold air, even if only for 5 minutes. I haven't found any of posts you mentioned about AC.
At the very minimum, you need to have the POA valve rebuilt for the 134. The release valve let go because the 134 needs to run at a higher pressure to get the same amount of cooling as the 12. You CAN retrofit the original system to work well on 134 but it isn't as simple as installing the refrigerant and may be as costly as starting from scratch with a modern kit.
I'm looking at the same scenario with my cars. 2 don't have factory A/C and will need complete kits and the '70 with factory air will most likely get upgraded too, if the car ever gets that far...

SShink · 3K+ Club

Both VA and CAA are $1300 if the card didn't originally have AC. It's another $200 for cars that had AC originally for the kit that's required. I've not seen these for less than $1200 for the complete kit including the pulleys, which likely need to be replaced for a non-AC car.