Howdy listees;

With the current Northeast heatwave makin' me hot, I thought I'd look into my
85 GL's Air Conditioning System.

My A/C is NOT the one in all the books, where it runs the length of the Van
and has some of the mechanism above the rear hatch --  mine is instead, almost
completely in a large "T" shaped console that starts just above the center of
the front windshield and travels along the ceiling to above and slightly
behind the driver and passenger headrests. Tubing runs down the left side just
behind the driver's seat, where I guess it feeds into the compressor in the
engine and the A/C radiator in the front.

This means some extra dipping of the head when moving from the rear to the
front of the vehicle (many friends have already bumped their heads on this
thing!).

While I was in Pep-Boys recently, I spotted a conversion kit for older GM
cars. Basically, you bleed off the old refrigerant (r-12(?)), and then add
this conversion screw with a new inlet, and then refresh with r-134a(?) and
it's supposed to work just fine, even in old A/C units.

So, my question of the day is: Can I do this to my Van? Is there a quick
conversion kit that will allow me to run the new refrigerant in my old A/C?
I'd really like to be able to drive in the hotter days of the year (not that
112 isn't considered hot right now!!) without melting inside the van.

So if anyone has done this before - particularly if you've done it before on
the type of A/C I have, could you please recount your experiences? Remember,
I'm still a newbie at being mechanically inclined!

Thanks!
Brian Cirulnick
techrat@vm.com

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