Hello all,
The A/C compressor in my 68 302 is not holding a charge and I’m looking at the options without knowing much about it. Questions - 1)Rebuild or replace and 2) clutchless or not?
Thanks in advance for your comments.
Regards,
Brad
From my experience, if you can get a charge and it doesn’t hold after a day or two, there is a leak. I rebuilt my system on Pole Cat a year ago and had to replace all O rings in the hoses and of course I replaced all seals in the compressor (none of them looked bad). I had a couple of tries and it did not hold a charge. A lot of checking and testing showed no results. Then finally one day I charged her up and started looking again for a leak at the fittings. I just happened to look at one of the hoses under the export brace and I saw a spot about the size of a quarter which had r134 permeating out of the hose. Got two new hoses and she has been fine ever since.
1, The compressors are quite simple, rebuild is pretty easy, new is easier. But I would look for leaks first.
2. Clutch is an easy fix as well. However, as I stated above, if you can get a charge it probably isn’t the compressor, IMHO.
Hope this helps.
Thanks for the information and glad to hear yours has worked out. This is about my 4th run at it. The hoses are new although the insulating tape seems to be flaking off due to engine heat. The leak appears to be at the compressor itself and the clutch seems OK. The decision point as I see it is whether to further run up the labor costs on experimenting with the seals or just replace both the compressor and the clutch (or clutchless compressor ?).
Take system apart, clean everything, all new O-rings. Charge with dye and pick up a uv light. If it leaks after that should be easy to find