I am resurrecting my 1981 300D's AC and casually decided it was a good time to replace the expansion valve. It was quite snug when coming out, but now I've coming up against a wall in installing the new one: all four fittings just won't line up to thread them on. I can get three to agree (to/from evaporator and from receiver-drier), but the large connection leading to the compressor just doesn't want to play with its friends.

If anyone has been through this before, I'd welcome some advice. Save for the receiver-drier connection, these guys are quite rigid and the tolerances are incredibly close.

Thanks. Encouragement alone is welcome! But I'm really looking for the secret sequence of attaching these darn things.

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Erlend
1981 300D 202K daily driver