A/C Conversion?

[hopps]

Hey everyone. It's soon to get real hot here in Georgia, so I'm seriously looking into fixing my A/C. About a year and a half ago, I replaced the a/c compressor and drier, only to find out that wasn't the problem. More digging and I realized that I have a HUGE leak on the a/c evaporator (fitting is stripped causing everything to leak out there).

So I'm looking into it more, and I don't quite understand the difference between conversion parts and OEM parts. I understand there are two different types of a/c whatever (R-134 and the original R-12) but what makes them different and why can't I use R-12 parts and buy a "conversion kit" (from paragon or something) and fill it with R-134? I hear a bad bearing in my compressor already, so if I had to do a full conversion to R-134 (converted compressor + condenser + new drier + conversion kit + evaporator = ~$1000 before it even gets a charge) I may as well forget A/C and spend $1000 on sweat rags.

Has anyone just filled their old system with R-134? Any problems with that?

Thanks

[944Larry]

Lots of opinions on this. I change the compressor oil to the Ester oil, pull a vacuum on it and if no leaks, charge it with 134. In probably 3/4 of the times I've done it I had no problems. Sometimes I have to add some once or twice a year but getting to and changing some of these parts can be tough. I'm going to do my 944 this year.

[kuehl]

You can run R134a in a 944 with an R134a conversion kit.
But if you have leaks you should fix them first.

[Gawernator]

I just kept the old system and still use R-12