Vannin' Home Forums Dodge How To (Dodge) Air conditioning upgrade

Have any of you kind gentleman ever posted a how to guide on upgrading the AC system to the refrigerant you can actually buy? (name escapes me) My attempt to fill it with that, with no other work, resulted in a loud bang and oil all over the headers. I have seen on ebay a whole kit to do it, for about 300 bucks but I know you need to flush the system and other things too?

Tried a search on the site; it isn't very good I found.

interested to see what you find. my system has never worked since i pulled my van out of a field. the engine guy destroyed my condensor (?) and was not repairable. at this stage i am thinking of getting in touch with vintage air for a new system. it can be done cause i talked to chris carter from the wild cherry van and he did it. please let me know what you find.

I've been doing some research. Rock auto has all the parts and if you click on "info" for eg the "kit" there are some basic instructions. I have taken screen shots and will post them when I get into this.

a summary

Dismantle
Replace all the seals, and basically most of the parts!
Suck it all dry of any crap and then flush it with "something" and then suck it dry again to ensure it is all out and the vacuum holds
Fill it with refrigerant and oil


That seems to be the basic vibe. it ain't cheap to get all the stuff. I'm sure I can and will learn more but preliminary research, this seems like something I can do. I'm pretty sure a pro job would be about $3000 around here, which means it would be $4500- I have lived in California long enough to know everything costs way more that it should and way more than you would expect.!

Years back I had a friend with a Chevy truck who got a quote to rebuild his AC system.

He then decided to do it himself instead.

Not an incompetent mechanic, just no experience doing AC.

About 2 weeks after finishing, he decides to follow me to Baja.

He's right behind me in a relatively sketchy part next to the border wall In Tijuana, and he starts flashing his lights and honking his horn.

I pull over and he's like "My AC quit working."

I'm like: "are you Effing kidding me, and you stop here?"

I got back in my van and started driving. He followed and lasted one day in camp and split, obsessed about the NonOP AC.

I returned from Mexico ~ 2 months later and he had a new used truck, and refused to answer any questions about it.

Later on I learned from a neighbor he tried again to fix it, and the cursing fit and subsequent melt down were both epic, and downright scary.

He'd spent so much money on other aspects of it before taking on the AC system himself, I figured he would be keeping it for years.

My AC never really blew all that cold, and I hated how the gas pedal felt and the gas gauge sunk whenever I used it, so I never used it, and eventually ripped everything out.

Just recently I replaced the useless compressor with a second alternator, which in theory could power a window shaker AC through an inverter.

It cost me 1K to have the White Rhino switched over.. 2 yrs ago.

i think somewhere in the past we had a conversation about not using the air and how the compressor had to stay because of how the belts run. "another alternator" is an interesting thought. right now, my compressor only lets the belt do its thing. i am concerned if the compressor goes out and locks up. i noticed that other vans (as in no dodge) have kits available to take the compressor out of the loop but yet, i could still use the same belt.

That was my fear, the unused AC compressor locking up on a road trip, and the only way to continue on with a single fnctioning alternator, would be to get a different compressor or install an alternator or some type of idler pulley.

I had purchased a new 50/120 Nippondenso alternator which was a drop in replacement, when my chrysler reman'd alternator quit working while on the other side of the country.

i was told the ND alternator with its dual internal fans would perform better than the Chrysler. It is a ND clone, made in Malysia and must be short on copper in the Stator as it maxes out at 109 amps, and hot idle speed amperage comes far short of the 50 it claims to be able to provide. It does pretty good from ~750 to 1800 engine rpm though with a higher output curve, than the Chrysler

I found the chrysler 50/120 which was able to meet those specs and slightly exceed them, well the rebuilders screwed up the new slip rings installation, and the bottom brush was contacting both slip rings. I rectified this and while there, tried to reduce electrical resistance, and increase thermal transfer from rectifier plates to the body, and returned it to service, and the ND sat on a shelf for 10+ months.

It performs well and seems to be slightly better at hot idle speeds than previously.

When installing the ND alternator in place of the AC compressor, and aligning it, I found the original alternator location to be no less than 6mm out of parallel misalignment!!

I wound up shaving off 6mm from the ears of the Chrysler alternator, as moving the brackets inward would have been too much a PITA. I have gotten the alignment nearly perfect, but have not yet wired up the ND alternator in its new location.

One interesting note is the ND alternator has a larger gap between the pulleys than either the crank or the chrysler alternator.

My Alternator having been 6mm out of alignment for upto 230K miles shows the V Belts are pretty easy going on the misalignment front.

I often ask for the alternator's max output, and have been using only one V belt, as the dang AC compressor was angularly misaligned, and even if I were to be able to acquire matched V belts, one would be the right tension and the other too loose, or tight, and vibrate and cause weird annoying harmonics. So I just ran one V belt and accepted it would squeal when damp and needing more than 90 amps production.

My ND alternator has been nothing but an Idler pulley for 5500 miles now, but soon It will work for a living as I am nearly tripling my battery capacity.

Here is a good read, worthy of a bookmark and a regular rescanning, regarding the mounting and belting and aligning of Alternators.

https://marinehowto.com/marine-alternator-installation-tips-tricks/

The Marine guys take it to the next level, as a failure of components in blue water passages could be life or death. It's good to see how far it can be taken, and then draw one's own line in the sand.

The good news is that installing the ND alternator in place of the ac compressor, was pretty simple as the bracket for the bottom of the AC compressor was the same offset, so one just worries about the other alignment points.

Back in '05 or so, I tried to better align the AC compressor and failed miserably, so am glad that is now no longer an issue.

While not an issue with a '77, when chrysler started putting voltage regulators inside the engine computer, a failed VR in the engine computer often meant a reman'd engine computer.

There is a way to trick the engine computer into thinking it is still coneected to teh alternator and thus not illuminate the check engine light. basically a 10 ohm 50+ watt resistor on the original field wires that attached to the back of the alternator

I run an external adjustable voltage regulator( transpo 540HD), and modified it with an external adjustment knob located on my dash, nect to digital voltmeters and ammeters, So i command the voltage the alternator is told to achieve/ maintain, and this can properly and quickly charge my batteries to at least 80%.

80% to 100% always takes no less than 3.5 hours even holding the battery at ideal voltages, but its nice to be able to get to 80% in less than a half hour.

The alternator at idle should be able to power many lower wattage window shaker AC without draining the battery, but I doubt the BTUS most window shakers are capable of can compare to a belt driven compressor.

window shakers are pretty ugly too, but if needed, and one can park and plug in, then good to have.