Leathermang, I was interrupted while composing my post. It was composed AFTER shertex asked about conflicting advice and BEFORE Pete gave his advice. I'm sorry if it sounded like I contradicted Pete. I was only trying to help sort out shertex's confusion.

BTW, why did you choose to criticize MY post instead of PEH's, who essentially said the same thing as I did?

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95 E320 Cabriolet, 159K

Kestas, don't sweat it. When you said "you can simply" in your post, every single hair on Greg's neck stood straight out. (I know, because my neck hairs do that too) However, I've noticed that A/C is a second religion near the equator, and that's why I've been haunting these posts to learn more myself. You and I can get by with opening the window for 11 months a year.

If it's still cold after six months, it's not a large leak.

Only problem with your proposed solution is the a/c system contains both refrigerant and oil. The oil lubricates the compressor. Both refrigerant and oil leak out of the system. When you run low on oil, the compressor will seize and fail. It's ugly.

As an alternative you could add oil each time the system is recharged. Only problem is you don't really know how much oil to add.

FWIW, a 30lb container of R134a can be had for ~$100. Another hundred or so for guages and such, and you could keep it topped up for a very long time for about $200 bucks. I actually did this for a few years with my 124 until I got around to changing the evap. In my case it was only going about three weeks between recharges; at that point the inconvenience starts to factor in and override the cost of replacing the evap.

- JimY

Kestas, To start with , here is your statement:

"As long as your system is blowing some cold and the compressor engages, you have positive pressure in the system and no chance of air/moisture/debris entering the system, hence, no need to evacuate, and you can simply top off the system as needed. Once the system has no pressure (the gage pressure is zero), then you have to treat your system as if it's contaminated."

Aside from the fact that it is wrong.. it was said with such confidence that I thought I would ask where you found such feelings.... It also shows you missed a couple of times in AC threads lately where this has been discussed... and at least once where I volunteered to take a picture of the statement in one of my AC manuals which clearly states that a leak is to be considered as having contaminated the system...

I hope and assume that you are more easily swayed with facts and argument than PEH, whom I have given up on affecting due to the basis of most of the things he says which I disagree with... because the differences come from his philosophy of frugalness ... which I consider "over the top"... he took me to task in an email in which he did not like the term I was using ( force) when air pressure is applied to a piston ... and he has hot buttons which include motor/engine,gas/fuel, etc... I still have not figured out what he was saying in that email about ' force'.... and I really tried...

but basically I came up the thread from the botttom... and did not see PEH's statement... just saw yours... LOL

I missed those threads. I know the suction side on a healthy system is above atmospheric. As you can realize, I thought the compressor cuts out before pressure drops to where the suction side goes to vacuum. Thanks for setting me straight.

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95 E320 Cabriolet, 159K

Just trying to keep moisture and dirt out of everyones AC....

Leather,

If you still can't understand the difference in pressure and force, you need to take a course in basic physics.

P E H