updates. Got a hose crimper.
Made oil cooler hoses out of good year galaxy.
Made new AC hoses. Just cut off fittings and crimped on new barrier hose. There were no barbs underneath the rubber. Just grooved tubes. So I put on some Oetiker clamps and wired both sides together to try to have blow off protection.
It was actually pretty hard to remove the metal fittings as they were brazed on to the crimps by Mercedes.
This is what the hose fitting looks like underneath. Not much barb. Had to grind down brazing.
Used the Oetiker pliers to fix my tranny cooler hoses while I was at it.
this was kind of a dubious achievement because the new hoses are so cheap. I guess I just wanted to try it.
So the car is together I've been daily driving it. Summer is here and the AC isn't the coldest bone chilling AC. It gets cool but I suspect I need a parallel flow condenser since I changed to R134. I kind of regret not buying one.
This spring I installed AC in my 65 F100 pickup and I put in a parallel flow condenser, new hoses, a Sanden and a new evaporator. I was actually pleasantly surprised how cheap it all came out to be. I think the whole system cost me only $400 including rx drier, hard lines, barrier hose, fittings. I had to fab some brackets but I did that with sheetmetal. What I'm getting at is I should have put a Sanden and a parallel flow condenser in this 300d too.
I thought it was too hard at the time but the pickup build convinced me it wasn't a big deal. The parallel flow condenser was really cheap too. Only $50. I was worried about hard lines but I got some of the "U bend em" type from Summit made by Vintage Air. It was a piece of cake to cobble a system together.
Does anyone know if the Mercedes o ring fittings are the same as the SAE ones on the Vintage Air hard lines? For example, will an ebay Parallel flow condensor hook up to Mercedes hose fittings without special adapters?
This is something to think about in the future. I must say my truck makes little ice crystals around the edges of the evaporator. It is really cold. I can see why Rich recommends going Sanden, PF, R12.
I guess my AC is cold enough...but I want that meat locker cold. Oh well, another project.