Went to get in the wagon this morning to run to Harbor Freight, with the memories of 45 degree vent temps from the night before.
Start car, hit my AC button ready to hear the rpm drop......nothing. Not good.
Went and removed the two wires from pressure switch and connected them to my jumper, compressors comes on. Uh oh!!! Surely not!
Pull wagon into garage and connect guages with car off. Only 35lb of pressure.
Freon mostly gone!
I held 29" vac for 18 hours, and felt good. But the pressure found a weak spot. (Insert senseless yet calming cussing tirade here)
Crawl under car, and yes folks, all kinds of oil around those M****** questionable compressor seals from a previous thread. Fastlane, you read these?
Don't even have the life force to type anymore..........

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__________________
Jimmy L.
'05 Acura TL 6MT
2001 ML430 My Spare

Gone:
'95 E300 188K "Batmobile" Texas Unfriendly Black
'85 300TD 235K "The Wagon" Texas Friendly White
'80 240D 154K "China" Scar engine installed
'81 300TD 240K "Smash"
'80 240D 230K "The Squash"
'81 240D 293K"Scar" Rear ended harder than Elton John

Sometimes vacuum can pull closed holes that are open under pressure.

There should be two aluminum sleeves with your seal kit. The SHORTER sleeve goes in the GREEN seal in the left (in your picture) stepped port. NO sleeve in the right hand port. W/o the sleeve they leak; with it, they still leak sometimes. Best of luck and I hope it works out well.

__________________
The Golden Rule

1984 300SD (bought new, sold it in 1988, bought it back 13 yrs. later)

Exactly how is the aluminum sleeve installed? The instructions say to press the insert into the manifold. My manifold already has a "lip" on the discharge side.

OK, back from my cooling off period. (which was in a simple Ford truck with freezing AC)
So I need to install the alum. sleeve on the left in my pics below of leftover parts? Will I need to get new seals now since these have been torqued, possible incorrectly? And which way does that spacer go? Lip in, lip out?
And sometimes it still leaks??

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__________________
Jimmy L.
'05 Acura TL 6MT
2001 ML430 My Spare

Gone:
'95 E300 188K "Batmobile" Texas Unfriendly Black
'85 300TD 235K "The Wagon" Texas Friendly White
'80 240D 154K "China" Scar engine installed
'81 300TD 240K "Smash"
'80 240D 230K "The Squash"
'81 240D 293K"Scar" Rear ended harder than Elton John

How much do the replacements for the crushed seals cost ?
How much does the refrigerant cost that will be lost if you don't get it sealed this time ?
How much driving will it save if you go ahead and buy TWO new replacements of everything you need in case you need them tomorrow when everything is closed ?
LOL

JimmyL,
I think it will go in only one way and still have a decent fit to the green washer. Lip in, i think from memory (such as it is). Left (shorter) sleeve is correct.

Washers are probably still good. Wouldn't hurt if spares were available as Greg suggests, though.

__________________
The Golden Rule

1984 300SD (bought new, sold it in 1988, bought it back 13 yrs. later)

Mine won't fit either way. The discharge side of the manifold already has a lip or shoulder that is going to penetrate into the ID of the seal when the seal is installed.
The insert would make sense if both sides of the manifold were flat, like the suction side.

How much torque did you use? My compressor instructions say 25 ft/lbs.

I was not that exact, to tell the truth...
Sounds like you had better instructions with yours than I did.

__________________
Jimmy L.
'05 Acura TL 6MT
2001 ML430 My Spare

Gone:
'95 E300 188K "Batmobile" Texas Unfriendly Black
'85 300TD 235K "The Wagon" Texas Friendly White
'80 240D 154K "China" Scar engine installed
'81 300TD 240K "Smash"
'80 240D 230K "The Squash"
'81 240D 293K"Scar" Rear ended harder than Elton John

Grasshoppa make 3 good points......




Napa will be open tomorrow I believe. Now I have the quandary of how much oil did I loose? Is an ounce or two likely, or less?
At least I'm glad under current circumstances that I went the Freeze12 route. You know how sick I woulda been had I vented precious R12

Is there a way to pressurize the system w/out buying one of those 30 gal nitrogen cannisters? Do you need a license for one of those, and, how much are they?


**Also, whenever I'm really down, like now for instance, I walk outside, start the wagon, stand behind it, and admire the lack of smoke. It could be worse!

__________________
Jimmy L.
'05 Acura TL 6MT
2001 ML430 My Spare

Gone:
'95 E300 188K "Batmobile" Texas Unfriendly Black
'85 300TD 235K "The Wagon" Texas Friendly White
'80 240D 154K "China" Scar engine installed
'81 300TD 240K "Smash"
'80 240D 230K "The Squash"
'81 240D 293K"Scar" Rear ended harder than Elton John

You do not need a license for the Nitrogen tank....
I think mine was $150 new, filled.
I have not bought a regulator for mine yet... so far it is looking like I can use the one off my Argon bottle... but I don't know that it would do for flushing...

My manifold already has a short pilot tube on the discharge side. The ID of the tube is 0.1" smaller than the OD of the insert. Does the existing tube need to be enlarged to make the insert fit?

JimmyL,
I am anxiously awaiting some news on your project. Is there any chance that you did not have the manifold tight enough? Any obvious reason that it leaked?
I just bolted my new, stepped-port compressor on. Could not see how the pilot inserts were going to fit, so I installed the seals by themselves. Currently at a stand-still awaiting delivery of a new vacuum pump.

I assume you guys are using Nylog on these seals ?