Thread: a/c - issues
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Old 05-18-2004, 11:43 AM
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euronatura euronatura is offline
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Join Date: Oct 2003
Location: Guatemala, Central America
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I can not answer your question on the condensor fan. As to verifying the actuators, if you open the glove box and remove the interior shell, behind to the right of the glove box is a central vaccum distribution thing-a-ma-gig. I forget its technical name. You hook a mighty vac to each of the lines (independently) to verify if they still hold vaccum.

Now that I think of it, are you sure that you do not have a vaccum leak somewhere? If there is not enough vaccum pressure I believe that it can cause problems with the actuators. You should most likely start with checking the vaccum lines in the engine compartment for cracks/old age. After that, if everything is good, then go onto the vaccum actuators like I just described. If you are not sure how to do this, then I recomend that you take to a shop. When I first had problems with my system I took it to an indy to verify the problem. He charged me 1 hour labor to check the vacuum pressure of the actuators and then gave the diagnostic of which ones where bad.

Now, this is the clincher. In my car if I recall correctly, there are three actuators behind the dash board and then there is the heater valve located behind the firewall in the engine compartment. To change any one of the actuators behind the dash you have to remove the dash. This is an 8 hour job! It can be done by yourself with patience and good lableing to put everything back together. (do a search under posts by haasman - I believe that he tackled this project and detailed it pretty well with pics.)

But be prepared to spend a long weekend doing so. Now this is only if you have bad actuators. I reiterate, take it to an indy and pay the one hour labor to have the diagnosis of the problem and then from there you can decide whether or not you can tackle the job.

Furthermore, I do not know if your car was retrofited to 134a or not. If it is still in the original a/c configuration it is r12 and this is hard stuff to come by and expensive. Also, the mecanic needs to be certified to work r12.

The reason why I push to get a clear diagnosis is because Benz uses a complex system for the a/c vents that are electric at the push button consol on the dash but oeprate under a vacuum system.

Iggy
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