Sucks about the brakes. Was there something wrong with your AC? I thought the timing on this was weird because I just went to the junk yard on Sat and pulled everything so I can put ac back into my truck. Summer must be coming!

 

I was curious as to what you were going to clean your lines with. Mine have been open so long, I am concerned as to how bad they could be. I will be following your lead on the AC. I havent messed with AC before and not sure about the direction I need to go.

I dont have any suggestions for your brake issue.

 

Yeah the brakes are a mystery right now, I'm slowly convincing myself the booster is bad. I really don't want to buy another 24 year old booster, but then again I don't want to pay $150 for new one when I'm not 100% sure that is the problem.

I repaired the AC once the summer before last, replaced a bunch of o-rings, vacuumed it down and filled with r134, worked pretty good for 3 to 4 months. Hasn't worked since, and I'm pretty sure it had a leak, especially now that I know there are 2 additional o-rings under the schrader valve plates.

Terry, glad you asked about the flush. You can read about it here on ackits.com: http://www.autoacforum.com/messagevi...&threadid=9172

Basically, they recommend flushing with either mineral spirits or paint thinner, blowing out with compressed air, and then of course vacuum down to remove all the moisture. I'm a little torn about whether I want to remove my evaporator or if I can flush it installed.

Started cleaning up my compressor, it was caked in dried oil or grease and mud, look at this pile of gunk that I wire brushed off of it.

 

Terry - I wanted to say one more thing about flushing the AC compressor. You only flush the compressor with the type of oil that goes with your refrigerant, so in my case, I'm going to put in R134, so I will flush with that Ester oil. Here is the link http://www.autoacforum.com/messagevi...threadid=12050

They say to squirt some oil in the suction side, crank the compressor by hand or with an electric drill (slowly with the drill), collect the oil squirted out the high pressure side with a cloth or jar or something. I guess repeat it until you don't see any debris coming out with the oil.

The rest of the lines, and evaporator and condenser, I'll flush with mineral spirits, then blow out with air. I think I'll replace the drier since it's cheap and every website seems to recommend it.

 

any time the drier is exposed to ambient air for too long it needs to be replaced..

 

Thanks Outsane, looks like I'll be ordering a new drier soon then. So new o-rings and drier, flush compressor with PAG or Ester oil, and everything else flush with mineral spirits. Put it all back together and vacuum down. Man I hope it works, the truck is nearly impossible to drive in the humid summer down here.

As for the brakes, picked this up off a member here, booster, master cylinder, and vac hoses. I'm hoping to try the booster, if that doesn't fix it, I might swap in that master, and if that doesn't fix the brakes, I have no idea what to do. The parts are still in transit, so until they get here, I'll try to do a little more work on the AC.

 

good luck with the brakes... marlin has 1" MC for $89

 

It looks to be in great condition. Hope it goes well for you. I hear you on the AC, last year was a hot one for everybody it seems.

 

I worked at an automotive A/C repair shop for 5 yrs. We always used a flush designed specifically for A/C systems and compressed nitrogen. Compressed air usually has water present which can cause problems. If you decide to use compressed air make sure you have a very good filtration system. Always replace the dryer anytime the system is open to outside air. Remove the evap and flush outside the vehicle.

Another piece of advise. The condensers on these trucks are very small. This creates problems when converting to a 134A system. 134A systems usually have larger sized condensers when compared to a R12 system. There is just not enough surface area on these condensers for them to preform well with 134A. The head pressure gets dangerously high. I would suggest going back with R12. It will cool much better. An electric fan will also help tremendously.

This is what I have experienced when working on my 1st gen 4runner and 3rd gen hilux. I tried to convert to 134A and eventually went back to R12 because of the high head pressure.

 

Thanks Outsane, wish I had known that earlier, I bought a used 1" Aisin from IH8MUD for $50. Oh well.

Thanks Terry, it looks pretty good, it was only $45 shipped for the booster and MC, so hopefully the booster works and fixes my problem.

Thanks man. Good advice. I realize the condenser is small, I'll try the R134 for now, better than no cooling at all plus I can fill it myself.

Speaking of the AC, I tried to take those allen bolts out holding the plates on top of the compressor. Managed to get 2 of the 4 out, but I stripped 2 of them. Why do these things always turn into major tasks? I guess I'm going to have to drill them out.

 

You might be able to get on the edge of the bolts with a set of vise grips. One thing I do when working on the Allen bolts (especially the one on the intake) I use the vise grips and allen wrench at the same time and put pressure on with both tools. They are made of some weak material and will strip easily on every Toyota allen bolt I have come across.

 

Couple of good hours in the garage today.

First off got that brake booster installed. It apparently came from a 1988 22re Turbo, so it was slightly different that my original one. The turbo one is thicker, but smaller diameter. There is a spacer plate between the firewall and booster that you don't user for the turbo booster according to my Chiltons.

Anyway, it's actually very simple to change the booster, don't even have to open up any of the brake lines, so no bleeding. Moved the master cyl gently out of the way by taking the hardline bracket off the firewall and removing the 4 nuts holding it on. Go inside the truck, take the 4 nuts off the inside, pull the cotter pin for the brake pedal, voila pull out the booster. I used the check valve and the vacuum hoses that came on the new-to-me booster because they looked to be in better shape. Drove the truck twice today, seems to have fixed the problem, brakes feel good again. I will be watching them closely to make sure this is fixed.

Moved back onto AC work. I drilled those 2 stripped out allen head bolts. Just drilled larger and larger until the head popped off of them. You can see the o-rings underneath that need to be changed.




Went to Lowe's and found 2 replacement allen head bolts. They are M8-1.25, 20mm long if anyone cares. It's like $1.20 for a 2 pack. Would have changed all 4 but they only had 2.



That's it for today. Need to remove the evaporator for flushing, flush the compressor, order the o-rings and put it all back together.

 

Glad to hear about the brakes, small animals crossing the road are safe again in South Florida! Hope your ac goes smoothly. Mine is so screwed right now it's starting to piss me off. Did all 94's come with ac? I'm starting to think mine didn't have ac, then it was installed, then it was uninstalled cause these damn fittings sticking out the fire wall are some weird size. Anyhow whats next on the list?

 

Good to hear the brakes are back up and running. Maybe AC will go as smooth for you.

 

nice work, with the brakes...

 

Thanks Outsane. I'm still here, making the ever slow march. I've been watching your thread with some interest on the intake swap with the new injectors.

Anyway, finally ordered my AC o-rings and a new drier from RockAuto.



Since this probably one of those one-size fits many imports kind of thing, I don't think I'll end up using the large rectangular o-ring. I do see 4 large o-rings in there that I believe will be the 4 under the compressor caps. So I hope I'm covered with all the o-rings I need.

Still need to flush everything and go pick up some Pag oil for the compressor. Anyone know how many ounces of oil to put into the compressor?

 

As warm as it starting to get, dont blame you on making the AC a priorority. Wishing I had it now.

 

Terry - I am trying, but I'm slooow. Right now it's hot here, like mid 80's, and humid, and then it has been raining most days. So if you've ever been in a hot damp car when it rains, you know it fogs the front window up like crazy. So basically the 4Runner is undriveable in weather like this. Anyway, hoping to have some progress here soon so I can actually use this truck.

 

Well, Sunday I finally got a chance to work on my AC.

1. Changed all my o-rings and flushed all the lines with a bit of Mineral Spirits and blew them out with compressed air. I may regret this later, but I did not remove my evaporator, although it was removed a few years ago and a new expansion valve was put on it at that time.

2. Flushed the compressor with air tool oil, then a tiny bit of Ester Oil. The Ester oil only came in 8oz bottle, and according to info online I needed a little over 7oz for my system so I did not have much to waste. The way I flushed the compressor was I squirted the oil into the suction (low side) of the compressor, then put a rag over the discharge (high side) and turned the pulley with a drill. Did this a few times to clean out any debris, then on the last time poured a little Ester Oil in instead of the air tool oil. As a final step, poured the 7oz or so of Ester oil into the compressor.

3. Installed the new drier and compressor, buttoned everything up. I happen to have a little 2.5 CFM ac vacuum pump from HF and their el cheapo gauge set. So I vac'd the system for 45 mins, turned off the pump and before I could even close the knobs on the gauge, the vac was already leaking.


sooo...opened up every connection and even took the compressor back out. Very very frustating. I realized that I had these r-134 fittings on the hi and lo side ports, so I took those off, cleaned up the threads, put some thread sealer on and put them back, also put new shrader valves in them.

And reinstalled everything, vac'd the system again, and seemed to be holding vac this time. So I connected up a can of r134 and I could not get the compressor to take the charge. Anyway looong story short, I'm almost certain my blue low side coupler on the gauge set is faulty. So, I'm trying to decide whether or not to buy a new set from HF ($55) or buy a more expensive set from somewhere else.

 

Found out tonight that AutoZone has AC gauges in their loan-a-tool program, so I am picking that up tomorrow. Finally something going my way. Hope to have the AC actually working in a day or two.