thehackmechanic
Well-Known Member
While the hot drive to and from The Vintage on Memorial Day weekend was still fresh in my mind, I wanted to rejuvenate the a/c in the Bavaria. I'm posting it here in the Bavaria section because, while much of it applies to the E9, there ARE things that are different about the Bavaria.
--As with my 2002tii rejuvenation, the plan was to stick with Freon (R12), install a rotary-style compressor, install the biggest parallel flow condenser that would fit in the nose, install a huge electric fan, and replace every hose with new ones made using o-ring fittings.
--I try to buy as much a/c stuff as I can from a guy named John Kulak (eBay handle JohnJoysyl). He's very easy to deal with, and very reasonably priced. His eBay store is very well set up to buy compressors, driers, fittings, and hose, but he doesn't have a large selection of condensers; I've had to go elsewhere for those. I've bought several from rycompressors2 on eBay.
--For the compressor, I used a Chinese copy of a Sanden 508. The model number is 9285. This has #10 and #8 o-ring fittings, but has R12-style charging ports on the back so you don't have to splice charging fittings into the hoses. This is now the third one of these I've used, and I've had good luck with them. I bought mine through John, but they are available elsewhere on eBay for as little as $123 shipped (John says "I can't compete with the folks making only fifteen bucks a compressor -- I don't even want to go out into the warehouse and pull it off the shelf for that little money"). Be aware that the low-side charging fitting is a standard 1/4" fitting, but the high side is smaller -- 3/16" -- so in order to get a gauge on it you need a 3/16" to 1/4" adapter. Really, any of the Sanden 508 or 709s or copies will work, as long as they have the two-groove pulley. It's just a question of whether they have flare fittings or o-ring fittings, and whether or not they come with charging fittings on them. The trade-off is that, if the charging fittings are on the compressor, you don't need to splice them into the hoses, but they're a bitch to reach when the exhaust manifold is hot without burning the **** out of your arm.
--There is a very lengthy recent post of mine in the E9 section on the compressor bracket.
--Parallel flow condensers are dirt-cheap these days, about $60. I originally ordered a 16x18, but it left a fair amount of room to spare, so I thought I could go bigger and I ordered a 16x20 and a 16x22. The 16x22 physically fit into the nose, but I didn't think I'd be able to get the hoses and fittings on, or didn't think I could reach them to tighten them from the front without dinging the paint. Note that on an E9, I think the largest size that'll fit is in fact the 16x22, and in fact I'll be installing the 16x22 into my E9. I returned the 16x18.
I was able to mount the 16x20 using the brackets from the original condenser without drilling any new holes. This is increasingly important to me when I deal with "survivor" vintage cars. I mounted the condenser directly to the brackets on the driver's side using washers as spacers, and hung down a secondary bracket on the passenger side. This positioned the condenser so that the hose fittings could easily be tightened from the passenger compartment before the radiator was put back in.
--I used a Spal 30100382 14" straight-bladed fan. These are reasonably priced at about $70, available through Amazon, eBay and other sources, and put out 1038 CFM. You can certainly spend more money on a curved-bladed Spal fan that moves more air, but this seemed sufficient.
--I mounted the fan to the condenser using the Spal mounting brackets. You'll see from the pics that, so the fan wouldn't hit at the top (meaning the underside of the nose), I had to mount it so the bottom of the fan is flush with the bottom of the condenser.
--For the drier, I wanted one that was about the same physical size as the original one so it could mount in the same location using the original clamps. I used one from John Kulak, part number 08842300 / RD538431, that has a sight glass, a switch port, and a 1/4" high side charging fitting.
--As I said above (and as I explain in great detail in the a/c chapter in my book), when you're replacing the compressor, condenser, and drier, and every hose, it makes sense to select new components that have o-ring fittings instead of flare fittings. The one component remaining which uses flare fittings is the evaporator. On my tii, I used flare to o-ring adapters on the evap ports, then used o-ring fittings on the evaporator hoses. This actually helps the accessibility of the fittings in terms of tightening and loosening them with the evap assembly in the car. But on the Bavaria or the E9, that's not the case. There are metal pipes coming out of the evap assembly that turn the hard right angles behind the glove box. On the E9, these metal lines go through the firewall, but on the Bavaria, they stop sort of the firewall inside the passenger compartment. For this reason, there wasn't room for added adapters, so I used flare fittings on the two evaporator hoses.
Your mileage may vary, but I used the following fittings:
Compressor -- #10 o-ring 90 degrees, #8 o-ring 90 degrees
Condenser -- #8 o-ring 90 degrees, #6 o-ring 90 degrees
Drier -- #6 o-ring 90 degrees, #6 o-ring 45 degrees
Evaporator -- #6 flare 90 degrees, #8 flare 90 degrees
As per my book, I bought a Mastercool Hydra Krimp beadlock crimper a few years back so I can make my own hoses. This is a godsend, as you can, for example, pass a hose through a grommet in the firewall, crimp on the evap end, then bend the hose around to see EXACTLY how long it needs to be to reach the compressor with the right bend radius, cut it, put on the other end, rotate it where it needs to face, and crimp the end on right there in the car. These days you can buy a Chinese copy of the Hydra Krimp for only about $220. But because of this, I don't measure length, and thus I can't post the length of each hose. It's misleading to other people trying to do the same project. It depends too highly on which compressor and bracket you have, which condenser you have, and how and where your drier is mounted.
As I always do, I pressurized it to 150 psi with nitrogen and it held overnight. I then pulled a vacuum for 90 minutes and charged it up with a little under three 12oz cans of Freon. I am getting 42 degree vent temperatures.
What's not to like?
--Rob
--As with my 2002tii rejuvenation, the plan was to stick with Freon (R12), install a rotary-style compressor, install the biggest parallel flow condenser that would fit in the nose, install a huge electric fan, and replace every hose with new ones made using o-ring fittings.
--I try to buy as much a/c stuff as I can from a guy named John Kulak (eBay handle JohnJoysyl). He's very easy to deal with, and very reasonably priced. His eBay store is very well set up to buy compressors, driers, fittings, and hose, but he doesn't have a large selection of condensers; I've had to go elsewhere for those. I've bought several from rycompressors2 on eBay.
--For the compressor, I used a Chinese copy of a Sanden 508. The model number is 9285. This has #10 and #8 o-ring fittings, but has R12-style charging ports on the back so you don't have to splice charging fittings into the hoses. This is now the third one of these I've used, and I've had good luck with them. I bought mine through John, but they are available elsewhere on eBay for as little as $123 shipped (John says "I can't compete with the folks making only fifteen bucks a compressor -- I don't even want to go out into the warehouse and pull it off the shelf for that little money"). Be aware that the low-side charging fitting is a standard 1/4" fitting, but the high side is smaller -- 3/16" -- so in order to get a gauge on it you need a 3/16" to 1/4" adapter. Really, any of the Sanden 508 or 709s or copies will work, as long as they have the two-groove pulley. It's just a question of whether they have flare fittings or o-ring fittings, and whether or not they come with charging fittings on them. The trade-off is that, if the charging fittings are on the compressor, you don't need to splice them into the hoses, but they're a bitch to reach when the exhaust manifold is hot without burning the **** out of your arm.
--There is a very lengthy recent post of mine in the E9 section on the compressor bracket.
--Parallel flow condensers are dirt-cheap these days, about $60. I originally ordered a 16x18, but it left a fair amount of room to spare, so I thought I could go bigger and I ordered a 16x20 and a 16x22. The 16x22 physically fit into the nose, but I didn't think I'd be able to get the hoses and fittings on, or didn't think I could reach them to tighten them from the front without dinging the paint. Note that on an E9, I think the largest size that'll fit is in fact the 16x22, and in fact I'll be installing the 16x22 into my E9. I returned the 16x18.
I was able to mount the 16x20 using the brackets from the original condenser without drilling any new holes. This is increasingly important to me when I deal with "survivor" vintage cars. I mounted the condenser directly to the brackets on the driver's side using washers as spacers, and hung down a secondary bracket on the passenger side. This positioned the condenser so that the hose fittings could easily be tightened from the passenger compartment before the radiator was put back in.
--I used a Spal 30100382 14" straight-bladed fan. These are reasonably priced at about $70, available through Amazon, eBay and other sources, and put out 1038 CFM. You can certainly spend more money on a curved-bladed Spal fan that moves more air, but this seemed sufficient.
--I mounted the fan to the condenser using the Spal mounting brackets. You'll see from the pics that, so the fan wouldn't hit at the top (meaning the underside of the nose), I had to mount it so the bottom of the fan is flush with the bottom of the condenser.
--For the drier, I wanted one that was about the same physical size as the original one so it could mount in the same location using the original clamps. I used one from John Kulak, part number 08842300 / RD538431, that has a sight glass, a switch port, and a 1/4" high side charging fitting.
--As I said above (and as I explain in great detail in the a/c chapter in my book), when you're replacing the compressor, condenser, and drier, and every hose, it makes sense to select new components that have o-ring fittings instead of flare fittings. The one component remaining which uses flare fittings is the evaporator. On my tii, I used flare to o-ring adapters on the evap ports, then used o-ring fittings on the evaporator hoses. This actually helps the accessibility of the fittings in terms of tightening and loosening them with the evap assembly in the car. But on the Bavaria or the E9, that's not the case. There are metal pipes coming out of the evap assembly that turn the hard right angles behind the glove box. On the E9, these metal lines go through the firewall, but on the Bavaria, they stop sort of the firewall inside the passenger compartment. For this reason, there wasn't room for added adapters, so I used flare fittings on the two evaporator hoses.
Your mileage may vary, but I used the following fittings:
Compressor -- #10 o-ring 90 degrees, #8 o-ring 90 degrees
Condenser -- #8 o-ring 90 degrees, #6 o-ring 90 degrees
Drier -- #6 o-ring 90 degrees, #6 o-ring 45 degrees
Evaporator -- #6 flare 90 degrees, #8 flare 90 degrees
As per my book, I bought a Mastercool Hydra Krimp beadlock crimper a few years back so I can make my own hoses. This is a godsend, as you can, for example, pass a hose through a grommet in the firewall, crimp on the evap end, then bend the hose around to see EXACTLY how long it needs to be to reach the compressor with the right bend radius, cut it, put on the other end, rotate it where it needs to face, and crimp the end on right there in the car. These days you can buy a Chinese copy of the Hydra Krimp for only about $220. But because of this, I don't measure length, and thus I can't post the length of each hose. It's misleading to other people trying to do the same project. It depends too highly on which compressor and bracket you have, which condenser you have, and how and where your drier is mounted.
As I always do, I pressurized it to 150 psi with nitrogen and it held overnight. I then pulled a vacuum for 90 minutes and charged it up with a little under three 12oz cans of Freon. I am getting 42 degree vent temperatures.
What's not to like?
--Rob
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