first off, if you have 134 fittings on the condenser line, LEAVE them! I put a wrench on the line to remove the fitting, and POW!!!! the entire 134 charge went out in one fell swoop! the fitting popped right out of the line.
i used almost no force, it just picked that time to release. my guess is the guy who put it on really tightened it.
anyway thayer the member whose car I was working on took it in stride, as I have plenty of parts cars to pull lines off of... until the flange would not seal on his ebay compressor... the steel plates with imbedded orings would not reseal, so off to the parts house... nope. off to another parts house... new compressor... got it changed, sealed up great. flushed and evacuated weighed in the charge of 12, cranked up the car... no clutch engagement...
we go back to the store... no more compressors in stock... we break for a meal.
and kent has an epiphany... lets hit it...
it works. the clutch engages with a tap from a wrench, so I start wondering how to hit it with the motor runnign... kinda dangerous with a wrench... i go get a branch about 2' long... it works...
so I made him a nice "clutch engagement tool..." a bent branch!
he is soooo happy. the system is putting out 30degree air. and cold at idle in the cabin of his BLACK sedan!
we do some more evaluating, adjusting of his pedal linkage... very difficult to press the accelerator. found it to be binding on the ramp on the linkage on the valve cover, adjusted the cruise control to keep the ramp past the hump. yaaaay! smoothe pedal.
still. thinking on the a/c I get the idea to rev the motor. and the clutch engages on its own...
hmmm...
trusty multimeter out and it's sitting just barely on 12v... at idle... hmmmm turn off the ac... voltage creeps up to 13v... hmmm.
turn on the ac it clicks right in. hmmm.... voltage drops a little around 12.89 or so... battery looks good, he says it's a year old. glow plugs were energized and the voltage drops below 11... then start, then the clutch needs power, voltage is dropping low. rev the motor and the alt raises the voltage enough to pull in the clutch. success.
I'll check it more on monday,
I'll leave it up to thayer to post his pic with the a/c engagement tool...
so all said and done, a 1 hour reclaim and recharge with r12 took...
9 hours in the HOT HOT sun...
yeah me...
really fun, but wow a lot of work...