Hello everyone. I have a 92 RS 3.1 which I purchased in Nov. of 06. The A/C never really worked and I did not mind because of the T-tops. My son is 2 now and does not do well in the heat, so i decided to fix the A/C... I bought the manifold gauge set, the retrofit fittings, and a can of 134 with leak detection dye. The compressor came right back to life, my pressures were within spec, according to the GM service manual, and I had nice cold air for 2 days... I picked up an ultraviolet penlight and hunted around under the hood one night in my garage with all the lights out. The only place I found any dye was on the lower radiator support. After some research, I made my shopping list... condensor, dryer, orifice tube, o-ring kit, high viscosity pag oil, two 12 oz. cans of 134. Well... the aluminum fittings were so badly seized onto the condensor, I had no choice but to cut the lines at the condensor and try to undo the fittings on my bench with lots of PB Blaster. Well, i ended up adding the lines from the compressor to condensor to my shopping list... but the line from the condensor to the evaporator is not available as a GM part or an aftermarket part. I went junkyard hunting and found the line in a 90 bird. Yay!!! Get home and the fitting to the condensor is the wrong size. Seems in 92, they used a larger fitting than in 90 - 91. Also, pre 1990 is a completely different line all together. Does anyone know where i can turn to find the confounded part?!?!? Please help...

 

Usually you can find a place that will makea new custom hose/repair your current hose for you. Sorry I cant remember off hand which one of the parts places do it but its like PepBoys or Napa something like that.......

 

Can you take a pic of your evaporator input? I have an extra hard line but some of them wer different....some evap input pointed straight out, some up etc etc.

Do you know if the system was ever retrofitted to 134a before? Are you flushing all the components completely and replacing the compressor (wich can't be flushed and will hold residual mineral oil)? If not, i recommend against using PAG oil. Retrofits usually use ester oil because PAG oil will deteriorate in the presence of residual R12 and eventually could pooch your compressor (due to the now shitty lubrication). If you set on using PAG oil, at least use a double-end capped PAG oil (viscosity 150). It is much more resistant to moisture absorption.

 

Eddie, thanks for your reply. I have been working alot of double shifts and have not even looked at my computer until now. I do not think my system has been retrofitted before. The original R-12 service port fittings are still intact. There is a label on the radiator support stating that leak detection dye was introduced into the system in 2003.
To answer your other ? The input on my evaporator points straight up, I did not flush the compressor, (GM service bulletin advises against it), as for the rest of the system there was no need to flush because I wound up replacing every single part (lines included) except for the evaporator... that was still good. I used the high viscosity Pag oil that stated is could be used for retrofitting GM systems.
As for the broken hard line from the condensor to the evaporator I found a company very close to me call Power Crimp Industries. They gave me a double ended compression fitting ($8) Which I used to join the remainder of my original line to the end of the line from the junkyard which had the right size fitting but, on the wrong end. My system blows pretty cold and NO LEAKS!!!