I bought my '83 300d back on New Years Eve '09 in Boston. Since then, my brother and I have replaced lots of parts to make this my daily driver. In March, we drove it down here to it's new home in Miami, FL where I continue to tinker almost every weekend. I have been avoiding the white elephant in the room that is the non-functioning A/C until last week when I started to sweat driving at highway speeds in the middle of the night. Now I wish I fixed it this winter while in Boston, I am finding that Miami is a tough place for honest A/C repair.

I want to do as much myself as possible. I have already removed the old compressor which had a bad clutch and the compressor was original so I bought a new r-4 from Phil made by Compressor Works. I took apart the system and flushed with proper A/C flush and blew out with lots of compressed air, installed the new compressor with 4 oz of mineral oil, then installed the new expansion valve after injecting 2 oz of mineral oil into the evaporator. I have not yet installed the new R/D due to moisture issues and this brings me to my problem...finally. I can not find a single person in the South Florida area who is willing to do a leak test on my car without converting it to 134. I am strongly objecting to this, but the cost of buying all of the equipment to do a proper leak test, and then a vacuum pump to properly remove all of this South Florida moisture is inhibitive. I have my 609 cert and four 12 oz cans of genuine r-12 and manifold gauges, but I don't want to waste it by dumping it into a leaky system that will then need to be reclaimed before the leaks can be fixed. I am in a quandary, any suggestions? I really want to stay with r-12.

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Former owner, always looking.

1984 300D Silver/Blue (deceased 1997)
1983 300D White/Palimino, Miami, FL 230,000mi (deceased 2013)