AC in the 86'

[86GmLsCoupe]

no sealers
if you wanna find leaks use 134a with leak dye in it.....not to be confused with tye dye

I gotcha so then the Walmart/Autozone recharge bottles with the gauges are a bad idea then. They all seem to say they have some sort of system safe sealant. Where do you normally pick up straight R134A w/ a dye?

Also, Thanks for letting me know the proper weight, I forgot to ask that as well.

[gadget73]

There are cans on the shelf that say they have a dye. Might have to go to an auto parts store, but they're around. I've gotten regular non-sealer type r134 at walmart before. usually its the cheapest stuff on the shelf.

I'd be checking pressures before adding any refrigerant. Also, the amount required is meaningless if you're doing a charge add without a machine. If you don't know exactly whats in there, you can't calculate how much to add to get that magic number. Basically the only thing you can do is add until it looks right on the guages.

[86GmLsCoupe]

I went to the shop by me that I've used before and asked about getting the system charged. Of course they'd want to evacuate the system and then recharge it to the proper pressure. All said they ballparked it around $190. I'm think I'm going to just buy the 134A gauges, refrigerant, and do it myself.

[gadget73]

well the optimal way is a full evac and recharge but you can get it going with a set of guages and a can tap. At a minimum, the guages will tell you whats going on and where to start looking

[86GmLsCoupe]

My Dad ended up picking up a recovery unit that can also be made to charge so things are looking very good at this point. In the long run it'll be much better to do it at home rather than pay $190 or more each visit.

[86GmLsCoupe]

We tried charging the system today since it did indeed show low on the gauges. My dad's friend said it should be 30,40?(forget which) on the low side and between 200-300 on the high side. It took a bit of freon but the high side wouldn't come up anymore. We ended up recovering all the freon out of the system and tried drawing it down. It would only go down to about 10 inHG and let vacuum out. So now we're going pick up the uv dye and to try and find and fix any leaks and go from there. I'm still not sure why the system wouldn't take anymore but perhaps the leaks, moisture, ect had something to do with it? I'll keep you posted.