Air conditioning repairs

By Kris Palmer, Minneapolis freelance writer

Last update: July 12, 2009 - 8:34 PM

Q:Just bought an '82 Ford F-150 out of an estate sale. The air conditioning does not work. I know freon is illegal but I am not sure if this truck has been upgraded. Hoping to avoid spending a fortune - this truck is for yard work and errands. Can this be fixed for a reasonable price? - Dennis L., Minneapolis

A:R-12, or freon, the refrigerant your system would originally have been equipped with, is not illegal, but it is no longer produced and hasn't been since the end of 1995. Vehicles with the old system can still be recharged with R-12; it's more expensive, however, and harder to obtain than modern refrigerants.

One option is simply not to fix it. Air conditioning feels good on the hottest days, but we get comparatively few of those here in Minnesota and you've said this truck is an extra vehicle that you don't use regularly. The person you bought it from may well have made the same calculus. Weighing the number of uncomfortably hot days you will actually use the truck against the cost of fixing the air conditioning may lead you to conclude it isn't worth it. It sounds as though this truck may not have been in regular use before you bought it. Other repairs may crop up to things like the brakes and cooling system - repairs whose costs must be incurred to keep the truck on the road. Even if you ultimately decide to get the A/C back to top shape, why not drive the vehicle a few weeks to make sure everything else is working well?

When a shop converts the system, they are supposed to affix stickers showing the refrigerant it contains after the work, e.g., R-134a. Ford has a service bulletin covering F-150s (Article No. 96-17-10) from 1980 to 1993 addressing this issue. That bulletin says R-12 is the recommended refrigerant and that R-134a the approved replacement.

Initially, ensuring the soundness of the system is more important than your choice of refrigerant. If the system is leaking, whatever you put in it will escape. A shop would run a vacuum test to ensure that it has no leaks. Then, if it has not been converted from R-12, you can recharge it with that once you find some. (There are sources on the Internet.) If the system has already been converted to R-134a, then you would simply recharge with that once you know the system doesn't leak.

If you want to convert it, there are kits readily available. I talked to someone in the service department at Brookdale Superior Ford, which still occasionally does these conversions (vehicles requiring them are becoming rare). He converted a car last year with a customer-purchased conversion kit. It was his recollection that the cost of that work was about $350 to $400. Labor would vary by vehicle, of course, depending on how easy it is to access and work on the specific A/C system involved. That price did not include the conversion kit purchased by the customer.

You can do this work yourself. If you do, buy a well-regarded conversion kit (the very cheapest one is seldom the best) and follow the directions carefully. The old and new systems typically use a different lubricant; for best performance you need to clean reused components thoroughly before refilling the system. Be sure to use all the components in the kit to guard against leaks.

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