Thanks for the reply and help..

R12


That is a good point.. I bought it off the Internet. They guy is a small seller of various items with 100% positive feed back. total sales of 372 items and member since 2006. So I would guess that seller was not a scammer, but you never know these days.
Two of the cans were Dupont , the other four cans which came from the same seller were Sercon had old K-mart stickers $2.75... The Sercon cans look like they have been around a while as they are not rusty but look like this one:
Sercon R 12 Refrigerant Air Conditioner 14 oz Can No Reserve Look Here | eBay

I do not have the dupont cans any more as they went into the trash.. They did look newer but not new..


Just front AC, never had rear. I went by the ford service manual that said 3.5 lbs with no rear AC. That was 4, 14oz cans. i also used the specs for the compressor oil and measured it out carefully. The complete system being new, nothing had oil in it


I did not think about weighing the cans before I charged the system, I just put 4 full cans in and they all felt about the same weight, or there was nothing noticably different that is..

The only part that was not Stock Motorcraft was the evaporator and dryer and i made sure the dryer was for R12.

Another interesting fact is that after the shop added the 5th 14oz can of r12 (n i specifically told him 5oz’s) the suction pressure was still at 40...

I double checked the blend door this morning and can see it open and close... I checked the heater hoses and both were hot! There is no valve on the lines for the heater but the lines are motorcraft and look to be original, so maybe it never had one.. And if the selector switch is on vent, the vent air is no hotter then the outside temperature. The only other way to test that is to disconnect the heater hoses and connect them together. Perhaps i could clamp them off temporally just to check that .

 

LEt me change a comment in the last post..

I don't know where the thought came from that the other 2 cans were Dupont.

When going through the van I found on of the other cans and it is Cold Shot Refrigerant 12. Those cans too look old much like the Sercon cans with little spots here and there on the unpainted surface, like they have been in dry storage.

Later today i will try clamping off one of the heater hoses.. I believe the water needs to circulate because there are two smaller lines that tee off the heater hoses and go to the intake.. I don't see a problem though with doing it just to test the theory..

 

So you have five cans of R12 in a system that holds four (I doubt you lost more than an ounce or two if it was just vapor not liquid) and it did not change the low or high side pressures?..... That is weird.

Unless you have a leak that you just happened to have perfectly recharged I don't know what's going on... I'm just a Farmer that's too cheap to pay for someone to wrench on my air conditioner but I have an friend that works on AC for a living and I can possibly run you're current high/low pressure numbers by him at some point if you could recheck them.

 

I am just wondering something here. The new condenser was missing a cap on the side that duns over the the evaporator where the orifice tube is installed. I briefly blew out the condenser before installing it. What are the chances of some dirt that might have been in the new parts, partially clogging the orifice tube? Could that give the same symptoms?

LAst check was 210 on the high side and 40 on the suction side. I have another spare orifice. The motor craft one i received looked brownish orange, perhap a bit old so I bought another from AZ and installed it..

I may be wrong but if the orifice tube was partially blocked, that might make the suction pressure a bit higher, not enough flow through the evaporator?

If I took it to the first shop that i wanted to, they reclaim r12. they could pull out the r12 and change the orifice tube, or at least pull it out and see what the screen looks like..

Unless you know of a way to pull out refrigerant and jet it back in... I think i still have a 30 lb can of some old refrigerant maybe r22... IF that can was empty and had a good vacuum on it, perhaps the high side could empty the r12 into the 30lb can. Then perhaps it could be put back in after checking the office tube?

 

Interesting thought on using the high side to evacuate the system. I think it would work to a point but it won't get everything out.

If I was going to do it (complete theory here and no safety) a vacuum pump with fittings on the input and output would pump the entire system out. I personally use a AC pump from an 1960s deep-freeze with a hose fitting fitting braised on the vacuum side and it really sucks. Lol. If I had an hose is fitting too go to tank it would most likely pump everything into it.... But I have zero experience with attempting this and can't recommend it...

 

Just an update.
The AC doesn't appear to have any leaks so far gauging from the fact that it is still cooling the same. I did adjust the cycle switch a about 1/2 turn and the lines started frosting up so I turned it back a 1/4 turn. That solved the frosting up problem and brought the vent temps down about 4 degrees. I have noticed that when first starting the engine and turning the AC on, the vent temps are around 42F. after the engine warms up, the temps go up to about 50F. I haven't worked with the AC any more since adjusting the pressure switch. I am going to try bypassing the heater hoses and see what happens..