Originally Posted by spliteye

Thanks for the advice. I'll be living in the desert, unfortunately. If I understand correctly, the expansion valve on these cars is located behind the dash and difficult to get to? I converted my 1992 Ford F-250 IDI that I use to own, replaced all the hoses with barrier style hoses, flushed the compressor, evaporator core, condenser, replaced the accumulator and orifice tube. Bought an a/c manifold from Harbor Freight on sale and bought a small Robinair vacuum pump. In the end, I remember it working well, as long as the truck was moving and had continuous airflow through the condenser. In traffic it kind of blew (no pun intended). Funny thing though, I bought all that for several hundred less than a shop quoted me for just replacing the accumulator and "expansion valve" (liars) and a recharge.

I found another for $3K, looks just as clean (they say the a/c works too), however it has over 230K on it. Its understandable why people ask so much more if their cars have less than 200K. There aren't many available.

Dan