Air Conditioning Compressor Failed

Well I started the season with an attempt to just recharge my AC system. My hope was that the compressor was not completely screwed up. So I went to a shop to have it done. The vacuum as usual held and thus the charged the system. They also added a lot of leak finder. Maybe too much. The shop is owned by a friend so I should have probably gone back and asked him about it. But as I watched the leak finder bubble out of the end of the compressor, I figured I probably would wind up fixing it myself anyway. So that's what I set out to do.

I first went about pricing the various parts I figured I'd need. First is the obviously failing compressor.

Atlantic British wanted $599(US)

British Pacific wanted $560-ish

Motorcars Ltd. I didn't even bother to call this time

British Pacific didn't have any in stock. I didn't want to pay $600 for a compressor. I mean, come on it's a Sanden 709, maybe one of the most common AC compressors put on cars. It's like the Chevy 350 engine for the love of Pete. So called JagGuy and asked him what the name of the place was he sent me for AC parts last time. He said, "Do you meanAuto Air of Oklahoma? Yeah, I said. So I dropped by there. I showed them what I needed. Don Murphy told me he would have to order it, he didn't have any, but he could have it there the next day. And I would have to pay shipping. I was thinking oh great! Here we go...at least the tax money will stay in my state.

"So how much for shipping?" I asked.

"10 dollars." Don said. How come when I ship anything overnight it usually costs more than the item I'm buying?

"That's it, so how much for the compressor?" I inquired.

After a brief phone call he responded, "$295."

"For a new compressor?" I answered a little stunned.

"Yeah."

"Let me call the wife, but go ahead and order it and I'll be back tomorrow."

So he did and I picked it up the next day. When I picked it up I told him that the going street price for this thing was $550 plus and I told him after I write this up you should expect a few more calls from my Rover buddies, cause that was a great price. As you will read later, they make hoses too.

So after I got the family back from vacation, I got JagGuy lined up to help me with the project. As it is his superior skills at vacuums and charging that I need to complete this project. I can turn a wrench, but I don't know shit about how it all works.

I started by removing the old dead compressor and getting the new compressor in place. It takes some rather large wrenches to get the fittings off. Like 1 1/8th to start with. You can see the compressor and the fittings here. Nothing special here. Try not to get any crap in the hoses when they removed. Other than that remember it is a pressure fitting and a little care must be made when removing.

You next remove the bottom two bolts to remove the compressor. You will need to loosen the tention pully to get the belt out of the way. Here is the compressor out of the engine bay.

The new compressor you can see in this picture only has two wires for the clutch. The clutch is an electro-magnet that pulls the weight back to engage the compressor. The leads are black and red. Your OEM compressor has a nice plug on it. So you will need to cut the plug off your old dead compressor to fit on the new compressor. You can see that in this picture. So cut it off and crimp it on to the new compressor.

I got a zip tie out and zipped the wires and the connector down to the new compressor. The OEM compressor has a nice hole for the bracket. It is not present on the new compressor unless your willing to drill it. I had no drill at the time. So if you want to drill the whole put it where the original is.

After I had the new compressor back in place it is now time to put the fittings back on. You will need a few "O" rings. Because you never reuse an "O" ring. You will fit the new "O" rings on the fittings.

Once your ready it's time to evacuate the system. You'll need a vacuum of some type. JagGuy borrowed Rogers's nice industrial vacuum. You will also need a set of gauges.

The procedure is roughly this. You draw a vacuum and then close the valve and wait to see if it holds. If it doesn't there is a nasty leak. As all off my vacuums have hold that does not guarantee there are no leaks. If the vacuum holds for 30 minutes you can begin charging the system. Now we found a little valve on the bottom of the fittings that may be closed preventing you from working with the charging connections at the back of the fittings.

I labeled everything in this picture.

The guys at Auto Air Oklahoma said I'd need just under 2 cans of coolant. Get the coolant and the "O" rings before you start. I always feel like I need extra of everything I'm working on, but the coolant is $7 a can. I remember the good ole days when R-12 was .99 cents a can.

Okay before I finish up. After we got the coolant in the compressor started squealing indicating we had too much stuff in the system. So we lost all the coolant we put in and the leak finder came out with it. We attempted to tighten the pully again and found that bracket broke. We had the old one off the new motor in a box so I didn't need to run over to Rover Cannibal for another one. I fitted it and then got back to the charging.

We soon found we had a leak on the high pressure hose. So the day ended. I needed to get my daughter RovErica picked up from school as did JagGuy. So I went over to Auto Air Oklahoma and had them make me a new hose. The hose was $65. I am hoping I don't have any other hose failures. I will schedule another morning with JagGuy to get the system charged as soon as our busy schedules allow. But for now I will continue to sweat with the windows down, sitting in traffic, in the 90+ degree summer sun.

The difficulty of this project is a 3 on the Difficulty Scale. I would say this is a 5 if you don't have a vacuum, an excellent idea of how the system works, and the set of gauges. The wrenching part is a 1 if you have the tools. Thanks for reading and I hope this helped you out. Tell the guys at Auto Air Oklahoma, Eric from Okierover.com sent ya.