Removing Aircon from a Disco

[Orgasmic Farmer]

I am in the process of stripping out my old Disco for off-roading and need to remove the Air con. I may put it in the other Disco if its not too much of a job (though I suspect it is)>. I realise somewhere in the system is some nasty stuff which will need to be removed in order to safely remove components. Anyone know the best way to go about this?

Cheers

Mark

[Andy]

you should call an air-con man to drain it. or loosen a connection & leave it outside, but i bet thats illegal.

[Mark90]

I took A/C out of a RRC whole once, but as the vehicle was being broken it wasn't a problem cutting a big hole in the passenger footwell. I took it to a couple of A/C places to be de-gassed but they "didn't have the right connector" or "it was filled with the wrong sort of gas" in the end one of the pipes "ruptured" and all the gas escaped to add to global warming

[Corrode Finger]

Rightly or wrongly, when the a/c was disconnected from my rangey, we put some rags around, and stood well back and just undid one of the pipes, it hissed alot and spat alot of 'crud' out.

Also made an alarming sound as the pressure released. Also done outside.

Probably all wrong and hurt the earth, but knew no better.

[TJ101]

I took A/C out of a RRC whole once, but as the vehicle was being broken it wasn't a problem cutting a big hole in the passenger footwell. I took it to a couple of A/C places to be de-gassed but they "didn't have the right connector" or "it was filled with the wrong sort of gas" in the end one of the pipes "ruptured" and all the gas escaped to add to global warming

What you probably had was the old R12 gas, most vehicles pre 1990 approx were using this, So what they are telling you is correct on both counts,

"officially" it should be vacuumed out properly, but not a lot of aircon people have the older type of fitting, only the later ones for R134,try a commercial lorry firm who deal with freezer trailers

If you have a vehicle on R12, it "should" be converted to R134,

[BogMonster]

I think the "whoops I loosened the wrong pipe" technique is probably the best

[Lewis]

I like the accidental spillage route, we sometimes do it at work if theres a que for the aircon machine, highly illegal and very wrong I know but I'm lazy

Bear in mind if you get caught (unlikely) that its £1000 fine per gram of the stuff, and in a disco you're probably looking at around 700gram

If you get bored whilst waiting for it all to escape hold something you dont want any more in the gas flow - we like to annoy other fitters at work by holding their spanners in the mist and them hitting them against a hard surface, they shatter nicely

Lewis

[BogMonster]

I'd like to see a court impose a £700,000 fine for an accident!

Proof beyond reasonable doubt is the key

Anyway, so far the summer here has been cr&p so we need some more global warming

[Mark90]

What you probably had was the old R12 gas, most vehicles pre 1990 approx were using this, So what they are telling you is correct on both counts,

"officially" it should be vacuumed out properly, but not a lot of aircon people have the older type of fitting, only the later ones for R134,try a commercial lorry firm who deal with freezer trailers

If you have a vehicle on R12, it "should" be converted to R134,

I'm sure what they were saying was right, it was an '89 car IIRC. However it just seemed ridiculous that these places couldn't deal with it, they where auto A/C specialists not just garages that do A/C. I was prepared to spend a bit of time and money to do the job properly but could find anyone to do it. It's no wonder people have accidents with the pipes.