I ended up removing the entire radiator assembly (water, oil, trans) to get enough room to pull the condenser and install the 16x24 PF. I found its easier to take out the whole assembly as one piece than try to reattach the oil cooler to the others in place.

I was mistaken, I missed the part in the FSM 83-528 chapter which is found in ACC I only where it says to drain AC system and coolant and remove radiator

https://www.startekinfo.com/StarTek/outside/12265/disc_2/program/Climate/83-528.pdf

A really stupid design when they could have designed it to come out the front w/o removing the radiator by simply rearranging the 4 mounting points.

funola, Sorry I missed this, but great you are able to figure it out.


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Working on a W123 AC has to be one of the most difficult and frustrating task. It has parts all over the car, many in difficult to access places, requires special tools and knowledge.

I am nearing the end and we'll see if I will be successful. Most of my parts are here, o-rings, schrader valves, PAO 68 oil, TXV, receiver dryer. Still waiting for the compressor step washers, hope they are the right ones. I am re-using the old compressor, hoses, evaporator, condenser which I have tested to be all good. We shall see.

Did you attempt to clean out your evaporator? It seems more often or not they are filled with junk.


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Yes twice, about a year apart. First time was with a garden hose. Most recent time I rigged up a WaterPik Flosser on an extension handle (solid 10 gauge copper house wiring) and spent 1/2 hour blasting away with LA Awesome cleaner. The stuff that came out was not that dirty. I am sure I did not get 100% of it since that are some tight spots that cannot be reached. I looked in there with a Borescope and of the places I can see, it was clean. Next time I do it I'll make a special right angle tip for the Waterpik so I can go in deeper and get to more of the evaporator.

After seeing how clogged mine was, I can't imagine that any non-invasive cleaning could get it completely clean. It's your car, but honestly it takes about 4 hours to pull the dash and dismantle the evaporator housing once you've got the hang of it, and really a good chunk of time for me this time was just getting the heater hoses off.

^^^I would have to agree with that taking it apart is the only way to cleaning it thoroughly.

Although I have to say, the HVAC box I pulled from the wrecking yard had surprisingly minimal debris inside and the evaporator looked really good. You might be lucky that way.

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