I found a cost effective way to make my A/C work on my 86. After hearing that R12 would cost me $85 per pound ( about 2 1/2 lbs for a 911 or 42 oz to be precise), I said forget it!

Then I stumbled of some posts where somebody was using propane/butane that seemed to work for him...so why not?

So off I went to Longs Drug store and picked up a 16 oz bottle of Coleman propane for $1.99 (couldn't find any butane) and then to Marin Outdoors camping supplies for the fittings to go from the bottle to 1/4" flare to connect to my maniflod gages, that's it.

I found that 16 oz of propane was the perfect amount to give a nice cool 40 degree at my outlet vent. Only other mod was to pull back the t-stat copper tube back about an inch out of the evaporator so it would keep the compressor from cutting out too soon. With the sensor tube pulled back too far, I was able to get my outlet temps down to 33 degrees, tooo cold if I wanted to keep my evaporator from icing up. A bit of trial and error to where I have it set far in enough to average 40-42 degrees at my outlet with the t-stat turned up all the way.

I feel very satified with the results and would probably never go back to R12 so far.

Cheers,

Joe Garcia
Redwood PCA since 1976
86 Carrera

Sounds dangerous.

My thought is this. If it works so well why isn't it used more often?

Probably because it sounds dangerous. But what's more dangerous, 14 oz of a gas which will purge in seconds from a system in the event of a rupture, or 100 lbs of slow burning gasoline? That's also what R12 substitutes on the market now such as Duracool are primarily composed of. Also refrigerant manufacturing companies stand to make no money selling propane and butane, but hey, start the sale of a new refrigerant product called r134a to replace the expired patent on R12, and complete the development of an all new AC industry to sell and support the new equipment, use the ozone layer as an excuse, and they are back in business.

Well, if there ever comes a time when I have trouble sleeping with nightmares of air conditioning fires, I could always put down a couple of hundred, go back to R12 and keep topping it off every year. But just knowing that my system works well and has been tested with propane makes me feel confident that if I ever do go back to the less flammable stuff, it will not be a total waste of money now that R12 is getting to be priced like gold.

On the brighter side, one good thing about propane that I really like is the fact that it is odorized. So if you happen to have a leak, you'll be able to easily find it with your nose. That could be a good way to prepare your system for R12.

Cheers,

Joe

who ever is selling you the real r-12 is drilling you. I sell it all the time to fellow 911/930 owners for $45.00 per 12oz can with the
onstructions on how to "top" it off.

keith eperly
keithepperly@earthlink.net

http://www.griffiths.com/

There is a good article about the system in Excellence this month. It's in 2 parts. Part 1 was pretty interesting.

I was thinking of upgrading the AC in my '86 911. Griffiths doesn't list prices on their web site so I emailed them:

This is why people buy products like Duracool and "wing it" by toping off a leaky system themselves. $3,000 seems like a lot of money to me!

Mike

Lets think about the Value here. You can send the heads off your 3.2 to
Christian Garibaldi
out of Dark Horse
and have the finest valve job in the world done
or send $2666.00 to Mr. Mriffiths for an A/c upgrade!
Sound like you have your long term preservation of
your carrera in the wrong frame of mind. Keep R-12 in it,
Read your owners manual on how to keep it at the max ,
park it in the shade or in a garage so the existing a/c has a chance of working and keep the car running right.

keith