Re: Lazy I

On Sun, 03 Aug 2008 19:58:04 -0400, Neon John <no@xxxxxxxxx>
wrote:

On Sun, 03 Aug 2008 18:00:45 -0400, Neon John <no@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:


I'd heard they didn't work well. But the mechanic told me "that
depends on who's doing it." As though there were some kind of
art to it. I don't know what to make of that, and we didn't go
further into it.

The early kits didn't work well. The PAG oil decomposed quickly in the
presence of chloride residue from the R12. Compressor failure followed.

A proper retrofit consisted of barrier hoses, O-ring replacement, a new
dryer/receiver, draining the oil from the compressor, solvent flushing the
condenser and evaporator, replacing the flare fittings with the new SAE quick
couples, filling the compressor with PAG "oil" (first cousin to brake fluid),
evacuating and then charging the system with 134a.

That's still the best way to do it and is the way I do it whenever the
customer will allow it. My labor rates are cheap because I enjoy this work
and I like to be selective. Still, the retrofit costs >$500.

I was re-reading my post and an idea dawned :-)

Grab that rig and get the mission-critical stuff done right away. Then make
your first trip up here to the Tellico Mountains. The roof AC will keep you
cool enough.

Bring along your fishing rods so you can slaughter some rainbow trout. You
can park in my full hookup slot or boondock nearby and come in occasionally
for a recharge, fill-up and dump.

There's actually a fire ring out beside my place that we can sit around and
tell lies. We could cook the fish you slay or some BBQ or whatever fits yer
fancy. I keep three freezers full of everything from corn dogs to USDA prime
porterhouses. We could even get Cliffie up here if he'd quit whining like a
*** about the drive up the mountain. (Sheesh, you'd think he'd never seen 25
miles of paved mountain road before!)

While you're here I could do your AC up right at a price you'd like. I could
do a proper 134a conversion AND mount a larger condenser up front to restore
some of the cooling lost to the inferior refrigerant. I could make that thing
freeze the balls off a brass monkey :-) If you wanted to spend a little more,
we could equip it with a modern rotary or scroll compressor and gain you back
a half MPG or so.

If you really wanted to get frisky, we could install the EFI on the engine.
It'd probably pay for itself on the return trip, not to mention the added
power, throttle response and smooth hot weather running.

Just a crazy idea....

John


Geeze. My kind of crazy. Crazy enough to cost me some money
this week on this Lazy Daze.

Good news. He got the AC blowing cold. Took one can of R12.
It's still not as cold as I'd like, and the ductwork makes the
outboard outlets feeble, but it is cold. Not outstanding. Maybe
it never was outstanding. The top fan speed is slower than in my
Ford. Tomorrow I'm going back to test drive it again, and I'll
put a thermometer to it.

More good news. The fire in the small ground was apparently
caused by looseness in the large ground down on the engine. I
mean loose as in rattle around on the grounding bolt loose. He
tightened it up and everything started working again. Started
right up. I'll drive it a little more extensively tomorrow and
see if it gets hot again.

More more good news, sort of. The fridge started working, but
still isn't real cold. The freezer is 30 degrees, but the fridge
part is only 68. Of course the ambient temp is 103. We turned
it over to gas and left it on. Tomorrow should tell a tale.

Man, that overhead AC is good and cold. I might need blankets in
the overhead.

Bad news. Found some rotten wood.

Not so bad news. It's not falling apart. It's in the outboard
compartment containing the water hoses and stuff, and it's sagged
down over about a two foot area in the middle of a 4 foot
compartment. Plywood bottom sagged down about a half inch, and
disconnected from 4 or 5 screws in the side cladding, at the
bottom. There's nothing heavy in there, and it looks like it
happened a long time ago.

I believe it could be fixed in a couple of hours with some new
plywood. The side is not damaged. I don't know where the water
came from, other than the hoses. The wall above it seems sound,
and there is no water source up there. The walls show no sign of
water damage inside or out. There is a big window there I might
take another look at tomorrow.

He told me he drove it two years like it is, and it never got any
worse. One of those things he was going to get to, but never did
because it never got bad enough.

So that's the everchanging story. Engine fixed, fridge sort of
fixed, AC working half ass, one bad place in the floor of a
compartment.

About the engine rebuild. I'm looking at the receipt, and it was
a "long block rebuild" done in Nov 2000 in Indio California. A
month before that, they'd had some work done in Yuma, AZ: a new
exhaust system, manifold, pipes, and muffler, plus a complete
carb rebuild. This was 10/30/00, at 86281 miles.

Carburetor and camshaft, lifters, wires and plugs, fuel pump were
replaced here in Austin in 2003. Spent about 840 bucks.

Fascinating stuff, no? :o)

It now has 100781 miles, nine years later. 14,500 miles in 9
years. Is it possible to use it so little? Sheesh. But then
it's just been sitting in this guys yard for the last 12 months.

The gas gauge doesn't work, and I see it's been worked on several
times. Finally they gave up. There's 28 gallons on one side,
and 36 gallons on the other, with a switch beneath the steering
wheel to go back and forth. That's a lot of gas. He just
switches back and forth, fills up when he feels like it, and has
never run completely out.

After repeated failures to repair the original gauge, that's
probably good enough.

I can't find the original sales invoice, but I did find a price
list from

WELL HELL! THIS PRICE LIST IS FROM 1979! HE'S SELLING THIS AS A
1989!

We're definitely going to have a talk tomorrow. The Dodge part
of this thing just doesn't look that old.

Bob, now looking for pictures of 1989 Dodge vans

.

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