Practically Classics Forum

So finally I (we, that is Cumbrianmale (VOC username) and I ) got round to fitting the Jetex exhaust.

Removal was the longest part, that said working from the rear , as soon as we released the hangers on the big silencer, the rear section snapped under its own weight, right up at the join! So clearly it was on borrowed time.

Some pics: 

Safely up on ramps, front end 'chocked' and in reverse gear. Cumbrianmale just having a 'look see'.



Silencer off, snapped at the rear, angle grinded to the front .



Grinding off the clamp to the cat' join. Tried to spin off the nuts, but they were well rotten! 



The end of the cat, naff pic. Gave this a clean off with some emery .



New one coming on! 




Plenty of fire gum down there! 


http://i280.photobucket.com/albums/kk16 ... 27f3e4.mp4
^^^direct linky to video.

And finally the 'new burble' . If you watch you'll see some of the fire gum shoot out when Simon gives it some 'beans'!!

You may recall that my air-con has not worked since I bought Zeb' in '09. With this hot weather I have been sort of 'on a mission' Mind you at the speed I'm going, I may have cool air by the time winter gets a grip
I did get the system to run for a short time.... a few love taps to the compressor.... then it soon died again. I found the connections on the Pressure Switch Trinary very dry and crumbly. Touched one and the wire came off! I thought I'd better try to solder it back in place..... I'm a real novice at soldering & somehow I managed to knock all 4 wires off . Having no idea which went where I gave up & looked for a replacement. Eventually,I sourced a used Pressure Switch via Ebay.de . £25 It is en-route.....

Having searched, the most common failure on these systems is that the gap on the air-con compressor clutch becomes larger over time with wear. Eventually the gap will be too large for the magnet to be able to pull it in to engage.

Gap should be 0.3mm-0.5mm.

Fixes range from inserting breadclips, using wire & disconnecting the the compressor, pulling the clutch plate and removing one of the shims behind it.

The breadclip fix apparently works, but they can sometimes 'fly out' with the force of the clutch spinning, so though easy it may be job that needs re-doing from time to time.

I decided to go for the 'wire fix' which i read on volvospeed I think. They said to lower the subframe for better access. I found that not nesassary, small hands rule!

The engine tray had gone AWOL some time back. There is another guard/tray to the front on the car. I removed this and found:

A rather tired looking Evaporator Still, the system still has gas, so hopefully........
The compressor (clutch end)

Measuring the gap (ignore the 0.09 gauge just to show where') The gap was 0.8mm.

So I began to feed in some wire which should push the plate in closer to the magnets.

All the way round.

And twisted tight-ish (don't want it to snap) and tidied up.

Re-checking the gap, which came out a neat 0.3mm all round - Spot-On!

Finally, I cleared the loose paint and rust from the evaporator & gave it coat of good old Hammerite!

Bring on the pressure switch! Fingers crossed:thumbs_up:

Postie has just been!

You've been busy, have you got an a/c pressure tester to see if you need gassing up? When I re-connected my A/C I gassed it up myself only for it all to leak away over 2 weeks. I should have believed the manual when it told me to replace the O Rings. £25 down the drain :S

Um' no A/C tester here.

So I've screwed in the 'new' pressure switch (after winning a fight to release the old one)............... and nope it still refuses to come to life.

But, I decided to check again for gas at the valve. It did have 'some' when the chappie checked it at the garage the other week, but as he said it was 'low'. I stuck a little screwdriver in and it went 'psst' for about a second and that was it, none left.

So guessing that it ain't gonna engage with to little/no gas..... I need a refill?

I would get it pressure tested first. Filling it yourself costs about £25 over here (£35 for the cylinder but you get a tenner back when you return the empty) but if you do that and you have a leak (as I did) you run the risk of literally blowing £25 in to the air. Have you tested the compressor to see if the clutch is engaging? I don't know how your system works but I get a clunk from the magnet even with no pressure. You should be able to supply 12v to it and feel for a resistance change in the pulley to make sure it has grabbed it properly.

So I am booked for the recharge next Wednesday (one of those 'suck out any old gas, vacuum/leak/dry out phase then slow refill with gas and oil' all singing all dancing jobbies). It has two choices!

Today I took delivery of one of those electric polisher jobbies, so just had to give it a go after a good wash. Zeb was pretty well waxed up, so after wash 'n' dry, I just gave him a coat of wax (Colly476 to be exact).
Quite chuffed with the result:

Well, I had a go with some Gliptone today. Just drivers seat so far which, as normal is the worst.
Before:
The kit:

It looks okay, smells dee-lish'!

Maybe the seat would benefit a little bit of dye...

Though, more important .... Regass of air-con was done this afto' picked him up at 1800. And.......it only chuffin' well works

Always nice to have working a/c. You will have a cool summer next year