That looked like a real mission!
So all we have to do is nag you to fix the air-con before winter :)
Was quite a job but I'd get it done quicker if I had to do it again, bit of a change from doing LPG stuff hehe. If I did it again I might go with my original idea for supporting the car with the subframe off which was to weld end plates to some heavy box section, the plates would then bolt to the car's subframe mounting points... some proper 'legs' rather than forklift bottles!
I do need the ac working, it doesn't have windows that wind down in the back. Iirc I explained the ac pipe situation on another thread - concentric ac pipe runs all the way from front to back and over the back axle so normally the back axle would have to come off to fit the full length pipe, mine already has a replacement style pipe, still concentric but a 3 piece rather than single piece unit which doesn't need the back end off to fit. Problem is getting hold of 3 piece parts is normally nigh on impossible... except I had a chat with a breaker the other day who has a 3 piece unit :-) But I can only buy the complete set up (3 pieces) not just the rear piece I need, and he wants £400 for it. Can't blame him as I'm sure he could easily get £400 for it. Original cost of the 3 piece in Japan was over £1k plus import costs to the UK, they don't make them anymore.
I know that instead I could run 2 pipes (flexible maybe) all the way from rear to front, cut into the metal pipes in the engine bay before the front end of the concentric section, somehow connect flexible pipes to the front pipes I'd cut, find a connector(s) that would mate with the rear evap, somehow connect flexible pipes to the connectors at the rear. The problems are what type of flexi pipe to use (is compatible with ac gas and lube) and all the 'somehows'... How to connect flexi pipe to open ended aluminium pipes. Open to suggestions! I'm thinking crimped joints on the end of flexi pipe with compression fittings on the crimped joints that will join to the alumininium pipes...
Today I visited the Elgrand scappers TojoMotors (Steve and Paul) in Beverley Yorkshire, bought the split section AC pipe and got a rear evaporator (complete rear heater box even) chucked in for total price of £380 :-I . Even though I knew I could pick up the split section pipe I still had concerns about getting the AC working again because when I removed the rear AC pipe from my rear evap the clamping bolt snapped as it was corroded into the rear evap. I managed to drill that bolt out and retap the thread so I could fit an M6 bolt in it but I'd only managed to retap the hole in the evap fitting slightly off-centre. Swapping the rear evap will get around any concerns I might have about the new threads not being right or having to offset drill the clamp on replacement pipe I'm fitting. Will also get around concerns of crap (grit etc) having got into the rear evap or AC lines since they've been disconnected (tried to plug them but I reckon some crap still got in there and I don't want to put the AC back together only to suffer a very soon pump failure). Now I have all the bits to fix my AC properly... except a replacement drier :-) I didn't come home and immediately start fitting it (which erm I might have had in mind), after visiting Steve and Paul 'we' had a ride on to Bridlington, fish n chips and a walk around the harbour before returning home, which kept 'us' happy. I do like visiting the coast though.
Advice welcome from all especially the resident AC specialist! Especially about the drier?
Aircon working very well now!
Removed the rear heater / AC box from my car and fitted the replacement evap from the heater box from the scrappers. While it was off I removed the heater drain bung from my heater box but the metal pipe the bung fits on snapped off... So I also had to swap heater cores between the 2 boxes. Easy job to swap AC and heater cores once the heater box had been removed though and even removing the heater box wasn't that difficult (carpets up, under floor ducting out, rear seat out, rear inner trim off.
The original front>rear concentric AC pipe would have been 1 piece, mine was 3 piece so was already a replacement (which had rotted again). The concentric pipe from the scrappers turned out to be 2 piece but the rearmost section of the 2 piece is the same as the rearmost section of the 3 piece. I had already removed my rearmost section but the plug I'd fitted at the end of my middle section had come out and I could expect the end of that pipe (and my original rear evap) to be full of crap. So I removed the middle section, cleaned and flushed it, refitted it and used only the rear section of the pipe from the scrappers.
Let Kwikfit Wheatley Hall Rd Doncaster regas it for £60, good set of lads, entered the correct 0.99kg on the machine, added dye, set machine to change as much oil as possible (dunno what difference if any that makes). Boring waiting for the machine to go through it's motions so I helped one of the lads change rear pads on a VW van while we were waiting.
Sorry I missed this, if its working though that's great :)
Might be worth coating the pipe in something to prevent corrosion in the future - thick oily goop maybe? Something that won't wash off too easily but keeps it protected. Sounds like a pain to get replacements for!
Fixing aircon just as the weather starts to get warm? Whatever next......
Sloth wrote:
Sorry I missed this, if its working though that's great :)
Might be worth coating the pipe in something to prevent corrosion in the future - thick oily goop maybe? Something that won't wash off too easily but keeps it protected. Sounds like a pain to get replacements for!
I'll probably just stick some Hammerite paint or pvc electrical tape on the section that corrodes. The section of pipe that corrodes is the narrow singular (non-concentric) two pipes that attach to the rear evap. Seems a bit of a design flaw with those pipes being exposed right behind the rear ns wheel, in fact the whole area that the heater box sits in seems design flawed really... no drains from there (except from the evap) so the area that the rear heater core sits in may get damp due to condensation from the heater/AC box and rust from the inside of the car out. Will be Hammeriting maybe undersealing the car around the rear heater box area.
Gilbertd wrote:
Fixing aircon just as the weather starts to get warm? Whatever next......
Againts Sods law but seems I managed to pull it off ;-) Once you see the vacuum has pulled down and held steady on the machine for a few minutes you know you've cracked it. Mind you, I didn't know for sure that the compressor that came with the replacement engine was going to work hehe.
https://www.bilthamber.com/electrox
have a go with some of that...
That'd do for the steel but is it compatible with the aluminium ac pipes? Would be unfortunate if in an aluminium/zinc combination aluminium were the sacrificial bit lol.
I was thinking of the steel bit, surely the Al shoudln't be rusting?
It'll still corrode through if covered in shite. My metallurgy couldn't say about the zinc/alu reaction though, someone a bit more clued up will hopefully know!
Don't you believe it. The AC pipes on the P38 are all ali and it is not uncommon for them to leak. Come to that, the condenser is also ali and we've probably all had to replace one of them.
Apparently Zinc Chromate is the stuff for etch priming Aluminium but it's carcinogenic and quite rare.
Seems that if aluminium and steel have an electrical contact and are damp the aluminium will be the bit that corrodes.. dissimilar metals with water = electric cell and either the anode or cathode corrodes. I'm not that clued up on it! But seems to be what's at play here and is a common problem on some (other) cars such as Peugeots where the AC pipe is held in a thin rubber bushing close to the front of the car that gets wet. And of course the AC pipes do have electrical contact with the body of the car.
The key from the couple of bits of paintwork I've seen on Aluminium (Know a couple of people with series Land Rovers) is getting the right primer and paint, One of them has repainted his replacement roof with success, the other has repainted the whole body a few years ago, and now the top coat is peeling off the primer. I believe he used the wrong primer to match the Aluminium panels hence why hes now having problems (the exposed primer seems rather too smooth to me to be doing its job, and the top coat literally peels off like old wallpaper - you can get hold of any of the loose edges and it will just peel away to the first edge it meets).
Thats brushed on paint, which is what I'd guess you'd probably be using.
Think personally your first port of call is to stop the crap managing to stick onto it - Does it have any sort of outer layer on it (foam or similar?) Or any way mud can end up resting ontop of it?
I'd just slobber it in Hammerite......
I thought they used enamel on series Landrovers?
'Tis looking like it'll get Hammerited lol.
Waiting for a customer picking his car up I just converted, I've been wet n dry sanding my yellowed headlights. Got rid of the yellow and they now look great when wet but are hazy due to the sanding when dry. The finest paper I have here at the moment is 1200 grit, I intend on getting some finer stuff which no doubt will get rid of the haze... But I wonder if Tcut would work just as well and be less effort or if Tcut would make the plastic lenses yellow again? I've got a large machine polisher somewhere but it'd be too big to miss the surrounding paintwork and (much worse) the rubber around the headlights.
Will have to wait for now though, I've got another car coming to be converted in the morning, another on Sunday (being left all week) and the Bentley GT Continental on Monday (if he doesn't put it off due to health problems again).
2600 grit and soap..... Had to do the lights on other half's previous car and found that T Cut do stuff specifically for cleaning the oxidation off plastic headlight lenses. Comes in two parts, one, a coarser stuff than usual T Cut (and probably has something in it to make it work better on plastic) and a sort of liquid sealer to fill in any blemishes. Worked pretty well but doesn't last more than a couple of months. Don't think it will work now you've covered the lenses in tiny scratches though.
Lpgc wrote:
I thought they used enamel on series Landrovers?
'Tis looking like it'll get Hammerited lol.
Waiting for a customer picking his car up I just converted, I've been wet n dry sanding my yellowed headlights. Got rid of the yellow and they now look great when wet but are hazy due to the sanding when dry. The finest paper I have here at the moment is 1200 grit, I intend on getting some finer stuff which no doubt will get rid of the haze... But I wonder if Tcut would work just as well and be less effort or if Tcut would make the plastic lenses yellow again? I've got a large machine polisher somewhere but it'd be too big to miss the surrounding paintwork and (much worse) the rubber around the headlights.
Will have to wait for now though, I've got another car coming to be converted in the morning, another on Sunday (being left all week) and the Bentley GT Continental on Monday (if he doesn't put it off due to health problems again).
There are other paints available now (would suspect some of the original paints no longer allowed due to their makeup). I think the one of the two that was sucessful was some sort of enamel, not sure what the other one used. I've been putting off dealing with plastic headlight lenses in the same state as well, I got as far as buying the kit to do it, but no further yet.
Not being in the know re air con pipes, could you not get a rubber pipe and slice it and cover the pipes that way ?, would certainly protect them from road crap