3.0L engine swap

[Farrar]

[Josh]

A major milestone! right on.

Also, definitely replace the orifice tube. it is good practice to replace it (and the drier) whenever you repair any part of the AC system.

[Bitsyncmaster]

A major milestone! right on.

Also, definitely replace the orifice tube. it is good practice to replace it (and the drier) whenever you repair any part of the AC system.

+1
Yes always replace the accumulator (dryer). Most people think evacuation will pull moisture from the drier pellets, it does not. You need heat (about 250 deg. F) to release the moisture from the drier pellets. Now if your system is totally dry and sealed then a working drier is not needed.

[Farrar]

Also, definitely replace the orifice tube. it is good practice to replace it (and the drier) whenever you repair any part of the AC system.

I bought a pack of five orifice tubes from AutoZone. I figure I'll probably break the first one, or two, trying to install them -- so it's good to have spares. LOL

I want to replace the orifice tube anyway, because I currently have a variable orifice valve and ... well, I have not been impressed with it. And it makes a lot of noise when the system shuts off.

...

One hiccup with the new condenser. I disconnected the short hose from the evaporator side because it seemed I was unable to come at the condenser's bottom fitting straight on without a little extra slack. Now that I've connected the hose at the condenser, I have found that it's a little short to reach the evaporator. The new condenser is actually mounted closer to that side of the car than the old one was, but that hasn't done me any good: since the hose has to come *around* that edge of the radiator, it actually requires slightly more length not less. I might be able to get away with using the current hose if I removed the high pressure cutout switch and release valve, but I'd rather not do that.

So it looks like I may need a slightly-longer-than-stock evaporator-condenser hose. This is not the end of the world. A/C hoses aren't hard to make. Once you buy the tool to crimp the fittings on, it quickly pays for itself. #2613 currently has Hervey hoses on it, and rumor has it that Hervey's hoses aren't always necessarily the exact same length from batch to batch, since they're made by a human being and not a machine. In fact I've always had trouble with that short hose, always wanting just a little more slack than it gave me, even before I added the high pressure cutout switch and release valve. So I think I'm going to just make a new short hose. It will take a few days for the supplies to get here. More waiting! LOL But working on old cars is always an adventure in patience, right?

[Farrar]

Side note: removing rusted-on washers from a sway bar using a cold chisel and four-pound sledgehammer is a pretty good workout if you happen to be an out-of-shape middle-aged guy like I am. LOL

sway bar flat piece.jpg

sway bar cleaned up.jpg

Trivia: those little grinding wheels for the Dremel tool are just the right size to clean up the inner surface of those sway bar washers. The rest I did with an emery cloth and wire wheel. Now the washers slide on and off with no effort at all. I'm glad I decided to do the sway bar bushings "as long as the front of the car is in the air..."

[Lwanmtr]

Probably gonna squeak less too. I know when I get to that point, I'm having all my bushings replaced along side the suspension udpate... Things Im not sure I'm able to do myself.

[Farrar]

For those wishing to work on their arm muscles without gym equipment, connect the sway bar to the LCAs, then lie down under the car and press the sway bar up into place one arm at a time. Repeat until tired. LOL

Although it's been said that you can replace the sway bar brackets with the car on jackstands, in my case it didn't line up until the suspension had a load on it. But before I did that, I cleaned up the holes in the LCAs and lubed the heck out of them with silicone paste. The front bushings went in with some gentle shoving, and I was able to pop the rear bushings in with both thumbs. Then I installed the washers and the old large nuts to draw the sway bar back into place. Easy!

Simultaneously I'm working on the a/c. All of the fittings came apart nicely, even though they were untouched for a few years. Silicone paste (see a pattern developing here? LOL) is my weapon of choice to stop those fittings from corroding together. The new evaporators from DMC do have zinc plating on their fittings, but it's pretty thin and in my case the threads on the receiver/dryer fitting ate right through the zinc on the evaporator, causing the steel fitting to start rusting. The receiver/dryer was heavier than I anticipated. I think there's a lot of moisture and oil in there.

In the meantime, the orifice tube was gunked up and broken. The screen came out with the bent pipe. I got the brass piece and spring out, so now what's left is just the plastic piece, and it's *WAY* up in there. Ordinary orifice tools won't touch it. I *THINK* the last time I had to deal with a broken orifice tube I found a long wood screw and basically used it like a corkscrew to bite into the plastic and pull it out. This was probably a decade ago and it was someone else's car so my memory is fuzzy. (The evaporator on #2613 went in fresh and I installed the variable orifice tube at that time. This time I'm going with the standard orifice -- eventually.)

[Bitsyncmaster]

I had a broken orifice and got it out by pressurizing at the compressor. You have to plug the hose from the condenser. About 100 PSI blew it out. As long as your orifice still has the limiting air flow that should work. Mine was a plugged VOV so it was easy to get 100 PSI.

[Farrar]

And now we know why the high pressure release valve blew when I was driving in Miami.

nasty orifice tube screen.jpg

I noticed that I was losing refrigerant very slowly. The leak must have been on the suction side. The little pipe came off very easily: when I put the wrench on its fitting to the evaporator I found that it was already loose enough to turn with my fingers. That's when I saw this. Looks like a bunch of dirt and sand clogging up the filter screen. At least it did its job: I haven't found dirt anywhere else in the system, just oil.

[DMC5180]

Farrar,

I noticed you put the HP cut-out switch hub at the outlet of the condenser. Did your car have the HP switch in that location from the factory or was it at the other end of the hose by the Accumulator?


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