308 A/C

It uses standard old Freon R12 unless it's been retrofitted to R134 (mine has)... you'll be able to tell by the fill fitting.

 

To expand on the above, if you look around for the fill fittings in the front of the car (I think under the big battery cover, I haven't looked for mine yet, should be near the radiator) they should be like tire valves. That means it's R12 aka Freon. R12 is hard to come by, so I suggest converting to R134a. You need to evacuate the system of any remaining R12 (which should, of course, be recycled by a shop with a special machine for that purpose. They may do this for free so they can get the R12 to resell.) The system will need to be vacuumed down with a vacuum pump (either by the shop or if you're a DIYer you may be able to rent one from your auto parts store). Then you can use a parts store-sourced R134a conversion kit. It's worked very well on the car I used one on last summer.
Of course, this assumes your system is healthy and not leaking excessively. If it is, you may be refilling that R134a a lot. At least you can go to the store and buy it to refill yourself!

 

somone is supposed to be sending me info on a York compressor for the 308 that works well with 134a. i will post the info when i get it.

 

I just had mine recharged with R12. It works great now. Although R12 is expensive, it's a lot cheaper than retrofitting.

 

I am interested in charging my system with R12 also, does some one have a photo showing location of the fill valve ?

 

OK guys the low pressure and high pressure fill valves are located on top of the compressor in the engine compartment. I replaced my compressor on my 77 2 years ago with a "remanfactured" York (the fittings on the Fcar will fit on the new compressor) compressor which I purchased from Big "A" auto parts store . The part # is 57066 and it was a commonly used compressor for Chrysler products , Volvo's , trucks and others. It is a direct replacement and you can use R12 or 134A Freon , all you need to do is use the correct ester oil to fill the compressor with. It cost me $125 for the unit and it comes without the clutch assembly. You need to use your clutch asm from the Italian compressor. It is a direct fit. Now you need to check your system with a set of AC gages to see if you have any freon. There is a pressure switch mounted in the compressor and if you are low on freon the clutch will not engage. So when you check your pressure and it reads "0" then you need to start having it leak tested. Just take it to an auto. AC shop and ask them to leak test the system. Once the leak is found write us all back and we can recommend the next move. The total cost to convert my car doing it myself was $200 and after 2 years it still blows 40 Deg. out of the ducts.

 

i put a new seal kit in my 80 308 gtsi this is the saft seal kit this were most of the licks come from saft seal on the box of this kit READY-AIRE # 2922 SEAL KIT -YORK transpro. allso for refrigerants http://autocool-refrigerants.com or 1-800-897-5097

 

R12 is hard to get in some parts of the world, but I am interested in what the Temperature difference is. My car is a 308 GTSIQV 1984 which was imported into Saudi and later went to Dubai where the summer temperature is 50 degrees C (122 degrees F)

And although the A/C could not handle the summer Temperature which was not really down to the A/C but the Temperature of the car itself and the ambient Temperature inside and outside the car and the component temperature of the car. Once parked in the sun could be 70(158 F) to 75 (167F) degrees C. The Temperature inside the car could burn your legs on the leather seats, and the A/C could never bring down the Temperature for normal distance driving.

This is extreme heat but people live and work in these Temperatures all over the world, Secondly the Humidity affects the efficiency of the as well, the more humidity the more water the drier has to deal with and the less efficient it becomes.

On my 308 (R12 system, we got the system down to 2.2 C (36F) at the diffuser in the car, by replacing the drier and the expansion tank and compressor, then vacuuming the system and refilling by weight as apposed to filling by gauge pressure.

This of course was not enough to cope with the heat, the next step was to look at the cooling fans in front of the radiator, they appeared to be about 1 inch from the radiator, I adjusted the position as close to the radiator as possible (some fans can get closer than others due to components used through the years). This improved the cooling system significantly, not enough for the Middle East but the car is now in China and the A/C is working fine. (If you move your fans please make sure you tighten them correctly as if the touch the radiator then you will have large bill to pay.

The comparrison of R12 V R134 I would be interested in the result on a car-by-car basis as any way to get the car cooler in summer is better.
I was of the understanding that R 134 was just a friendlier gas to use not a colder gas.

 

Its not that expensive to retrofit. My mechanic converted the 365 to run on R134a for under $150.

As for it being a colder gas, the short answer is no, its not. But it won't screw up the atmosphere as much as R12 does.

For those that are really interested, a good discussion can be found in:

"Selection of Alternative Refrigerants", E. Nielsen, Master's Thesis (Mechanical Engineering), Auburn University, 1996.

 

Two things to kick in--R134a is actually LESS effective than R12, so stick with R12 if you're trying to eek out that last bit of performance. Another option is AutoFrost (www.autofrost.com) from the guy you may have seen the video of dumping liquid Oxygen on a hibachi...neat guy!
Secondly, the costs of converting from R12 to R134a should be minimal--you buy the kit from the parts store for something like $30 and it works well. The new kits are pretty well improved over some of the early ones and I haven't had any issue yet with my conversion last year. My R12-designed system has held the refrigerant just fine and I didn't have to open the system at all! And if you DO have leaky hoses, topping off the R134a is a simple DIY job.