DIY Air Con Re Gas

[iain1067]

Anyone used the kits available in Halfords, good or bad???


Thanks


Iain

[A80Avant]

never heard of them! what are they?

[iain1067]

It's a can of refridgerant complete with gauge that you stick on the a/c fill hole, they cost about £40.00 instead of £80.00 plus at a dealer for a recharge.

Iain

[CoupeWannabeS2]

A friend of mine used one of these, and was really happy with it. Word of warning though, according to the employee at Halfords, you should never use the entire contents of the canister - but about half. Apparently the canister has too much in it for the average car so over filling can damage your system.

[Markarina]

I have a local AC specialist they do a AC service for £47, oil, re-gas and dye

[S2central.net]

A friend of mine used one of these, and was really happy with it. Word of warning though, according to the employee at Halfords, you should never use the entire contents of the canister - but about half. Apparently the canister has too much in it for the average car so over filling can damage your system.

Yeah - like I'd take advice from an employee at Halfords - LOL.

For goodness sake don't attempt this if you haven't at least got a low pressure aircon gauge to see how much is required. There are some cheap-ish ones in Halfords.

Be advised also you need an adapter cable to connect the low pressure fitment onto the compressor - there isn't a traditional R134a sized service port on the S2/Rs2.

And the aftermarket top up kits do NOT work for older R12 cars unless they have been professionally converted to CFC friendly R134a.

Paul

Paul

[quattronutter]

i have used the halfrauds refils several times seem to do the job ok

[shadquattro]

seems like a waste of money to me, you should really have the system tested for leaks, rather that just putting the gas in , it might just fly straight out of a nice big hole in a pipe or 2.
And as Mr s2 Central says you need to know what gas is in the system they dont mix well.

[quattronutter]

i only ever use it if the system has been emptied,after engine work for example,if it has a known fault it needs testing obviously

[Graham]

I have used one of these and it works really well, although you should have it vac'd first, then (IIRC)750g of refrigerant--can containg about 5-600 so is infact a tad short on filling. the aircons on the S2 are quite large as the condenser is big, plus the filter/drier. There should be a sticker under the bonnet infront of the drivers side which tells you how much and what type of gas is required.

[S2central.net]

Before attempting my climate control conversion - I'm going to make sure the existing parts of the manual aircon are up to puff... I have a leak in the system somewhere - guessing the pipe thru inner wing to drier, but I've bought a leak test kit with UV dye and such to confim that.

I've also got some nice aircon pressure gauges all the way from the US of A (thanks to Johne) and a bottle of regas stuff to get a feel for how much is enough and with reference to the factory A/C info I have...

Presumably I need a good blast of the gas into the system before injecting the UV dye - I need to get enough pressure into the LP side so that the compressor will actually startup. This gas I have includes PAG oil as well, but its gonna be impossible to know how much is enough / too much...

I lost a teaspoon of oil when I had the condenser off last week, so I can use a lil more oil. Hopefully this will be enough to locate the source of leak(s) without calling out an AC expert...

So question then - is the LP port on the compressor a standard fitment - common with R134a fittings - or some oddball thing ?

[s2driveruk]

Yep my A6 regas was £50 all in and the Rs24 (R12 substitute) for the S2 was only £70. Think the fill on the R134a is something like 750-800g from memory

As far as I know the port is standard.

[johne]

[Presumably I need a good blast of the gas into the system before injecting the UV dye - I need to get enough pressure into the LP side so that the compressor will actually startup. This gas I have includes PAG oil as well, but its gonna be impossible to know how much is enough / too much...

I lost a teaspoon of oil when I had the condenser off last week, so I can use a lil more oil. Hopefully this will be enough to locate the source of leak(s) without calling out an AC expert...

So question then - is the LP port on the compressor a standard fitment - common with R134a fittings - or some oddball thing ?[/QUOTE]

Paul,

On my compressor the LP fitting isn't a standard R134 push fit fitting, but it is a standard screw fit fitting which will match the fitting on the yellow hose in the gauge set. The yellow hose has a one-way valve in it so you need to be careful which way round you connect it. I filled my system that way but as long as the system isn't running you can also fill through the high pressure port on the radiator. Either way invert the can of gas and place your hands around it to warm the can, forming gas at the top forcing liquid refrigerant out the bottom into your system.

The extra oil won't matter just to test things but long term you need to be aware that Audi as OE fitment fill with PAG oil as do the automatic refill systems used by many garages but the cans of refrigerant and oil usually contain POE oil and whilst either is good, it's said to be best not to mix them.

As you've had the system open, you'll have no vacuum and a substantial volume of air and moisture in the system. Again, no good for the long term, but hopefully it won't hinder you long enough to find the leak.

If you can, another option would be to borrow a R134 gas "sniffer" from your local garage. That way you only have to put some gas into the system and no dye but wouldn't need to run it to find the leak as the gas will get round without the system running, the UV dye won't.

John

[missmouse]

Anyone used the kits available in Halfords, good or bad???


Thanks


Iain

The correct way is to have the system evacuated first before recharge to get rid off all the moisture & air. However having said that, when I worked years ago in the middle east what we did was to purge the system to atmosphere using extra freon! (tree huggers would hang us nowadays for that!)
we used small cans of the stuff & a tube with adaptors, looked much like halfords kit but was R12 then! Cost was tiny, about $2 a can!
Get to know a good a/c guy, they dont charge you much then.& they have all the test kit for correct charge & oil etc.

simon

[missmouse]

BTW my a/c guy fills up my car on the high pressure port. he just heats up his bottle first! works fine if you know what you are doing (ie, no halfords tinnies on there!)

simon