samiam4

I'm wanting to make a modern evaporator coil designed for r134a to fit my truck.
Since my truck is a daily driver, does someone have a spare they can lend me? I want to make a jig to get the txv or expansion valve location correct relative to the coil.

Probably take me a month between finding coil's and getting the tube tight welded. A little r and d.

M

samiam4

I'll make them available to the forum, if it works out well.

thrashingcows

The evap coil from any A/C truck 1980-1993 is the same. Any way to grab one from a junkyard? I have a spare, but shipping from northern BC to the USA would probably cost prohibitive.....

bigragu

I'm dreading that repair when mine decides to leak one day, as I've heard it's a job to get one out

samiam4

I'm sure there are a lot harder cores to replace. I'll dig one up.. hoping I could just borrow one for shipping.

Stay tune, modern coils are much better at heat transfee and use less freon.

Jim Lane

It is not such a problem installing the new one as it is to rebend all of the lines on the replacement coil to fit the air box, it took me about an hour in a vice to massage the lines into place so it would fit perfectly.

I also rejected quite a few evaporators before I found one I could live with, workmanship was shoddy, soldering was horrible and the flux was not cleaned up, lines were already corroded out of the box.
Also the replacement is not as effeciant as OEM, my new temps are nowhere as low as the origional.

Jim

rlyons

Why bother, I can buy an R12/134 new core at Autozone for $89?

Jim Lane

That is where the problem was,
I ordered them from both Auto Zone and O'Reilly's and everything they sent was junk, they looked like they were assembled in a 3rd world country by day workers, on most of them the fins were already bent, the manifold tubes were all bent in different angles from one unit to the other, the connecting block was not in the correct position, the brazed or silver soldered joints were already corroded because they had not been cleaned or neutralized.

After I found one that I thought would work, it took me about an hour to make it fit perfect in the heater box.

I wish I could get a new OEM unit.

I have pictures of the evaporators if you need to see them,

When I ordered the condenser, other than the first one had a footprint on it the second one was perfect.

It did come from a different vendor.

You should see what happened when I ordered a heater core. LOL

Good luck.
Jim.

samiam4

The whole idea is to modernize the system. A/C design changed drastically over about a 10 year period starting with the introduction of R134a. I'd rather not buy a generic off-shore made coil which was never designed to operate w R134a when I can assemble a parallel flow coil assembly which will out perform the OE coil. The micro channel designs were all patented by modine in the 2000s.
Call it an intellectual challenge.

Michael

Jim Lane

Here are another 2 evaporators that OReilly's had ordered for me, set them side by side they do not even look the same.



The counter person could not explain to me why they did not look the same, I ask, are they not supposed exact replacements?



The manifold was not even parallel to the core.



Here is their part number.



After I spent about an hour with the evaporator clamped in a vice, I gently got it to be a perfect fit. I then pressure tested it to make sure there were no leaks after it got mauled.



If you think the workmanship was bad on the evaporators, look what I had to deal with on the heater core, this time it was between OReilly's and Pep Boys.

They were ordering me 2 heater cores at a time so I could choose a good one, at least I was hoping to.

After core #6 I told the counterperson that all they had was junk and then he told me I could not take pictures in his store, I laughed at him and he got mad and went and got the manager.

The manager came and I showed him the junk and then ordered me 2 more heater cores. up to now, all of these were made by Spectra.







He finally ordered me a core from a different vendor, this time it was from Redy-Aire





Finally after about a week of special ordering parts,

This is why I do not like to order anything online, I like to inspect everything before I buy it.

Jim

Jim Lane

I would like to modernize mine by more insulation in the cab and then install cold plates under the seat, use a 12-volt Danfoss compressor so the engine does not need to be running, turn my cab into a refrigerated box, then my ice cream will not melt.

I could plug it into shore power at home so my truck is always cold.

bigragu

Jim, did you by chance re-braze all the joints on that evaporator coil you ended up taking and tweaking with?

edwinsmith

Jim:

Was the Ready-Aire unit the quality one?

Edwin

93flatbed

What's your time frame on wanting one? After the summer heat is over and I can stand to be back out in the "shop" most of my dash and HVAC box is going in the dumpster. Old box will house my inner stage.

BTW, 134 is going bye bye, 1234 is the new thing and a more complex system. We are just rolling it out in GM and the little I've messed with it, it seems to cool better. But time will tell on that one.

j_martin

134 is junk. I use a mixture of R290 and R600a (71/29 ratio). Cools as good as R12, is readily available, and has zero impact on the ozone.
Runs well in R12 systems and oils.