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Restoring 1973 610's air conditioning.


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My wife bought a 1973  610 station wagon in about 1979. The air conditioning (it appears to be factory air, there is a control knob built into the dash between the vent controls and the steering wheel shaft) worked perfectly. Around 1992 the unit began to throw the belt every few years. In 1998 it would throw the belt after a few days. Car was not driven from about 2003 to present. Now I am restoring it. My wife wants the air conditioning to work, it is quite warm here in a southern California valley. I noticed that the pulley of the compressor is about an inch out of alignment with the engine pulley. The brackets do not appear bent at all, but they are massive and I guess I wonder if it is practical to to try to fix this old unit, or should I think about getting a more modern compressor from a junk yard. Do you think the old compressor would be compatible with the new California required refrigerant? All but the old compressor seems to be ok. Only problem that there ever was is the throwing of belts. I am concerned that since the air conditioning system worked fine for years, that the old compressor started seizing, and that created the belt throwing. Are there places that rebuild compressors? What should I do?

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Any compressor can use any refrigerant, but it may not last very long. I hear a simple o-ring upgrade can be done to convert the old R12 system. I have a shop that specializes in A/C do all of my work, so I'm no expert, but I do pay attention to what they do and that's what makes me think that the o-rings will do the trick.

 

As far as the alignment issue, has anything changed over the years? New engine? Different pulleys? Different water pump? Is it possible that when the belt was replaced, it was simply put in the wrong groove?

 

I would love to help, but this is one of those instances where a pic would be worth a thousand words. Get yourself a photobucket account and post up a pic or two.

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It was difficult for me to take a photo. The upper portion of the reddish-brown rod is resting in the grooves of the compressor pulley and the bottom portion of this rod is resting in the grooves of the belt-tension pulley.

 

The green rod is resting in the center of the pulley on the end of the crankshaft. Please note that the green rod is offset to the left of the red rod showing that the pulley of the crankshaft is not aligned with the pulley of the compressor and the belt-tension pulley.

 

The misalignment is approximately one-quarter inch.

 

28466836360_34da68e5e9_b.jpgAir Conditioning pulley alignment by Donald Broz, on Flickr

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A quarter of an inch is not horrible. If it's throwing belts, the compressor may be seizing, or there may be a physical blemish on one or more of the pulleys.

 

So to revisit my above questions, did anything change or any work get done prior to the problem starting?

 

Good job on getting the pics BTW. Most people never step up, and those people suck.

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Hard to tell, but it looks like you have a York compressor. Best thing to do if funds allow is to upgrade to a Sanden 508 style compressor setup for 134a refrigerant. There are many connection and charge port options for these. You can buy the knockoffs for a little over $100, or the real deal for a little over $200. The hoses should be changed, but the ones on there, unless in poor shape may work for a while. if you have the budget, you can take them to a hose shop to have remade with the proper barrier hose and upgrade to o-ring fittings where possible. There are places that sell adapter brackets to convert York brackets to accept the Sanden type, then you can fiddle with that to get the compressor to line up better. If your car has a fairly large condenser, that would be useable, but if it is a small one, you may want to upgrade it as the 134a is not as efficient as the R12. put a new R134a compatible drier and swap the expansion valve since you have it apart and there you go.

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Hard to tell, but it looks like you have a York compressor. Best thing to do if funds allow is to upgrade to a Sanden 508 style compressor setup for 134a refrigerant. There are many connection and charge port options for these. You can buy the knockoffs for a little over $100, or the real deal for a little over $200. The hoses should be changed, but the ones on there, unless in poor shape may work for a while. if you have the budget, you can take them to a hose shop to have remade with the proper barrier hose and upgrade to o-ring fittings where possible. There are places that sell adapter brackets to convert York brackets to accept the Sanden type, then you can fiddle with that to get the compressor to line up better. If your car has a fairly large condenser, that would be useable, but if it is a small one, you may want to upgrade it as the 134a is not as efficient as the R12. put a new R134a compatible drier and swap the expansion valve since you have it apart and there you go.

Efficiency wise, you can go with a hydrocarbon based refrigerant, physically, but not legally, propane works quite well in an R12 system (lots of the old Benz guys run it). Some steps on the conversion you need to go through to be legally kosher (e.g., order of swapping, r12->r134a->hydrocarbon) for hydrocarbon setups in a car, couple of companies sell refrigerants that work for this and are basically a propane/isobutane blend.

 

Or just buy R12, the certification (609) is 20$ and requires an online test. R134a is already creeping towards the banned list anyways. Technically, you need a 609 certification to work on any automotive a/c.

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Thanks! Great to find out what was what, and the link to the adapter plate. What do you think the cheapest Sanden would go for? Unfortunately cost is a real concern.

I re-measured that offset and it does amount to 3/8". Would the adapter plate be able to correct this?

Order one and find out.t That universal plate looks like its got some pretty big slots to compensate for various alignments.

1+ vote for hydrocarbon refrigerants. They sell envirosafe refrigerant on ebay as well as the sanden compressors.

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What model Sanden? Is there much difference between a $125 model and a $325 model? It does seem baffling that I can get the compressor for $125 and then have to pay $129 just for the mounting plate. What would be a ballpark for the cost of all the pieces I would need (please refer to my earlier photos)? What would a ballpark cost range be to have an air conditioning shop do everything?

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What model Sanden? Is there much difference between a $125 model and a $325 model? It does seem baffling that I can get the compressor for $125 and then have to pay $129 just for the mounting plate. What would be a ballpark for the cost of all the pieces I would need (please refer to my earlier photos)? What would a ballpark cost range be to have an air conditioning shop do everything?

i had a sd508 on my datsun. the cheaper sandens are chinese made.

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