After a full top end rebuild everything is running well. 300 miles on the rebuild and no major concerns at the moment. But while checking out the work I spotted this lil leak from near the fire wall. It has left what feels like a lil oil deposit (maybe, feels slick ).

Next up, I pulled my ac blower motor because
It sounded like a 747 was landing in my dash. After I learned that the foam that was there last time I looked in the dash had vanished (fell apart ) (small 5.5 by 4.5 foam square). I found pieces in my lower (foot) blower vent. So I picked up a similar foam from the hardware store to replace. But after doing research here I have learned how dirty and nasty and backed up the ac evap gets. After 25 years I imagine it’s prob time to do it (and may be the cause of the loud jet plane in my dash). So my question is how much does this labor run or is it something I can knock out myself. I have the glove box off already but I don’t want to cause a still working (Though loud) ac to not work. Seems like a new evap is about 250 from McGeorge.

Last I’ve been through a bunch of posts on seats. Anyone really happy with the seats they replaced in their Toyota. I’m between the courbou seats and a reupholster job.

Here is a couple things that have gone right for me since I hit 200k today.

Truck lite headlights. Just do it. They are killer. They are brite. They installed in no time flat and they are plug and play.

Rough Country steering stabilizer works good. At least over the old stock blown one

Got a idler arm from 4crawler. So far so good.

Energy Suspension sway bar stuff looks good and tightens me up. I did all the above in the last week and I’m enjoying it.

 

I would not replace the evap. Just remove it, clean it really good and reinstall with new o rings. You can do it your self. Remove the glove box and everything is accessible from there. Oil leak could be the rear valve cover seals.
I personally have not upgraded my seats yet but I have heard good things about courbou.

 

That black thing is the valve that controls coolant flow through the heater core. Doesn't look as if the control cable that comes out of the firewall is connected to the valve.

 

To replace the evaporator, you must FIRST take it to an A/C shop to have them recover all the refrigerant in the system. It is very illegal to vent refrigerant into the atmosphere. But then you'll be in for a surprise: if your truck was built before Jan 1, 1994 (like mine), it probably still has R12 refrigerant. You'll have a very tough time finding a shop that has an R12 recovery setup (they won't mix your R12 with their R134a equipment.)

Your noise in the cooling unit is from the fan; the evaporator is silent. You can do a pretty good job of cleaning the evaporator coils without removing it; that will help a lot. You might have to replace the fan, but pulling all the dead squirrels out might be all you need.

 

It's hooked up, missing its retainer clip..

Looks like the seal around the shaft is failing, maybe dryrot while the system was empty. Don't know if that's designed to be serviced, if there is a screw there you can probably find a replacement oring.

Now about this jet in your dash? Is it the AC or the blower?
But "CO" how do I know? Glad you asked, unplug the blower if it doesn't go away call a priest you need an exorcism (or an AC guy..)

That foam filter you found blocks some of the fan noise, so does switching it from cabin draw to outside air on the recirculation switch. They get very noisy right before they stop working after injecting things, like the filter media, as the bearings fail.

 

Thanks for the reply’s. If I remember my truck was made in Nov of 94. Something like this.

As I cranked the “volume” up on the ac it would get louder. I do also believe it is likely the blower fan.

I went to the car wash and used a vac and cleaned out the cage area. A bunch a dust had collected under the flap. While the blower was off I got the vac hose as deep into the evap container area as I could (which was not very deep ).

I may try and just put a new motor in since I believe it to be the likely culprit as well. For now it does blow cold ac so maybe I’ll wait on the evac until that happens ?

As for the leaking hose... it’s wet to the touch in the dead center of the plastic piece.

 

As far as the new foam replacement was the old foam inside the cage above the blower motor or outside the cage.

 

I spotted this lil leak from near the fire wall. It has left what feels like a lil oil deposit

Both R-12, and R-134 refrigerant have compressor lubricating oil mixed in with them.
A tell-tale sign of a refrigerant leakage in the system will be an oily deposit near the source of the leak.
Your A/C system could have already evacuated itself.
An automobile A/C system, by design, will not engage the compressor clutch if the refrigerant pressure is too low, or absent.
However the cabin fan system will still run.
Have you noticed a decrease in the cold air output lately?
Art.

 

Well is it the hose or the valve, it's really hard to tell from way over here. Just kind of went with "it must be that not dusty bit"..

When a hose starts to fail internally you'll see wet and/or buldging bias cords first (this is fluid making its way into the core of the hose and wicking out the end), the next stage is full separation of the inner and putter rubber (this is a visible buldge), the final stage is a ruptured hose.

I can see some exposed cords there, if that's not due to using a suboptimal cutter, it's something to keep in mind. Nothing catastrophic here yet, just a little wet.

 

Ahhhh yes ! So before the rebuild my ac was cold. Then when I picked it up after it was warm. (Or not as cold). Since I owned the truck for only two years and never had a problem with cold air I simply added a bit of ac refill in a can (like what you get from Autozone). Air was cold again and off I went.

Other than the loud blower buzz I had no complaints on being hot. But it’s only been about 200/300 miles since the ac recharge.

when you say evac itself does that mean ole girl is shot, start over. Where do I go from here

 

That's close to 1/1/95. On the radiator support, there should be a sticker that will tell you the type of refrigerant (and the amount of charge in grams). If your truck was converted from R12 to R134a sometime in the past 25 years, there should be a new sticker (required by law).

Almost certainly R134a. If you started with R12, you now have a mix, which is just not good.

 

After the rebuild I took this picture. Based on the sticker I got lucky ! No mix here.

Would my next step be replace these hoses where this leaks appears ?

 

Get it clean and dry, maybe replace the clamp with a worm drive like is on the outlet side of the heater valve, then see if you can isolate the leak to the hose vs the valve.

You can manually pressurize the coolant system with a coolant system pressure test kit, this is a special radiator cap with guage and hand pump, it helps find these sort of leaks without having to beat cycle the engine.

 

I decided to replace all my heater hoses. HPS made a heater hose kit which I scored for half price from amazon. Saved me having to track down each part number and at 40 bucks for all 4 hoses I think I did well.

I replaced the blower motor tonight and it’s is much quieter. So that must have been the culprit. I will monitor the A/C temp over the next couple weeks. If there is a drop off In cooling I will investigate further. Before the rebuild the truck sat for 6-7 months. Not sure if this contributed. Either way I have a whole new A/C system in the garage so if there is something that comes up I’ll just start over. After 25 years I give credit to all these parts for making it this long. I Was able to track down a denso condenser which I thought was gonna be a real pain since Toyota tells me its back order everywhere.

I picked a new compressor/evap and dryer along with an expansion valve for a pretty fair price off amazon. I may replace everything either way but I think I’ll wait till the killer Texas summer is over since it’s working good for now.