Howdy,

Plenty has been written about the Vanagon A/C system, but I was intrigued recently when I read that someone was getting about 50F from the vents with R134. I checked my 85 and it can only muster about a 15 degree reduction  from the outside air temperature using the same refrigerant. Note that its currently a 102 degrees outside and my A/C is managing to blow 87 degree hot air!.   Huuummm... given the same size condenser and evaporator  as other vanagon owners have, what gives?  

I then visited our local auto A/C shop and they claim that the Westy condenser is too small for R134 but was fine for R12, for which it was designed.  This begs the question "what is the average ambient temp reduction one should expect when using R-12 and R-134 in our Vanagons?".  Perhaps my system is partially plugged (I never did change the expansion valve)  and it can do better!.

Thoughts?

Thanks everyone,

Vince