Cold Air in the Face
For about one year now, I had resigned myself to the fact that the AC in my car was broken. This meant some hot summers in New Jersey and even hotter ones in Atlanta. Well, last weekend my fried (and personal automotive guru) Jon decided that that was the weekend where the AC got fixed.
Now, I drive a 1986 BMW 325 (E30 type). This is such a sweet little car, but it is old. I had assumed that something horrible had gone wrong and the AC was un-fixable. Oh contraire! Upon investigation, the big problem was that the refrigerant was low. This by itself is an easy problem (go the store, buy a bottle of refrigerant, refill the system).
However, the root cause of the low refrigerant was a leaky low-side valve. These old BMWs originally ran on R12 (that’s the awesomely-cold-environment-destroying kind of refrigerant). They sell conversion kits that allow old cars to accept R134-a (which is safe, Mr. Gore). When my car was ‘converted’ by the previous owner, he had done a poor job and wrecked the valve upon installation. After getting a new conversion kit on the car and filling it with refrigerant, my car blows cold again!!
It is soooo nice to arrive places and not be sweaty : )
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