Steve, a lot of us look conversely at buying the tools. It may cost as much as a farmed-out job, but then you have the tools for any future a/c work. Since John is a DIYer, he may be wise to buy his own tools. They'll pay for themselves on the first job.

Although staying with r12 gives superior cooling, a good conversion to r134 may be more appealing for the DIYer and 'good enough' if you live in the northern climates with mild summers. The two cars I converted keep my family cool.

By getting creative you can save some of the tool money by making a vacuum pump out of an old refrigerator compressor, or in my case I have access to a good portable industrial vacuum pump.

I taught myself a/c repair simply by spending a lot of time reading posts on aircondition.com and ackits.com.

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95 E320 Cabriolet, 169K