Firestorm500

You can either spend money or ride around hot. Your choice.

jronald

Little theory and some background.
134 is about 30% less efficient than 12. To compensate the 134 system is 30% larger or is driven 30% faster or is 30% something!
The oil between the 2 systems is not compatible, it eats rubber. Thats not a huge issue these days, because you can not get rubber o-rings that fit the AC systems...they are all silicone based now.
If you move EVERYTHING from 1 truck to the other, it will work fine. If you dont move everything you fight the 30% dragon, compounded by old parts. Best guess is you will wind up with a system that is about 60% as efficient. That's best case!
Whats your time worth.

Ron

duafacia

How many parts are in the system?
Compressor, condenser, drier, accumulator....?

I live in hell valley, err Las Vegas, and need to fix my a/c system. No one I can find will use R12 (I know the back story on why). Looking at swapping components out of a later year'd XJ like a 97+ to compensate for the larger condenser, unless a new condenser will fit to an older XJ (92)? Schematic I saw from TYC looked all kinds of different so I am not sure on the last part.

JohnWongFat

I'm in the same boat as duafacia, I can't find anyone to work on R12. I tried topping it off with Freeze 12 in hopes it was just low refrigerant, but no love. It doesn't feel like any of the can went in to the system at all. Can anyone provide a link for either troubleshooting an R12 system, or maybe someone who's done a junkyard swap? I'm not a mechanic, and I've read that the A/C system can be dangerous to work on if you don't know what you're doing...

Cherokee40

I think it boils (figure of speech) down to how bad do you really want reliable cold air in your jeep? If you DO want reliable cold air, get ready to spend some money and get everything up to today's standards. Just my $.02 worth. A/C work is not dangerous ( replacing components that are defective, and the system has no pressure left in it) until you begin charging the system with refrigerant, which is best left to do by those with the proper tools.....

Kuro89

What is wrong with the 97, parts vehicle?
should say somewhere on the compressor what refrigerant it uses, if they are both 134a it stands to reason that everything should swap and if you didn't want to evac is you would have to figure out how to pull everything without disconnecting a single line and put it in in the same fashion, your best bet is to get a friend who does refrigeration and will help out (work) for a few cold beers

duafacia

I heard HotShot works really well as an R12 replacement. Its an amalgamation of 4 or 5 different refrigerants though and requires some XH-9 doo-dad.
Don't know what the hell the XH-9 is but our systems have XH-5 and R134a needs XH-7.