2002maniac wrote:
The car looks awesome Bill! Hopefully you can get the AC up to snuff.
Thanks! (actually: thanks to everyone who's show appreciation for the ol' girl )
I have an AC thread going in the General Discussion but figured I could elaborate on it a bit more here.
So I bought a cheap-o recharge kit and a couple cans of R134a from Ace a while back (see grocery bag picture). Unfortunately when I went to recharge my AC I found that I don't have the quick disconnect that most R134 systems have. Instead I have two ports on my compressor (pictured below)
In the AC thread we were able to figure out that this system MAY have R134 in it, but it still uses R12 ports as it hasnt been converted. So my recharge kit is useless.
Furthermore, I was advised in the thread to get a set of gauges because who in their right mind would pressurize a pressurized system without knowing how much is in there, etc. That lead to the hunt for R12 gauges. How hard could it be?
Well, that brings us to Thursday night (Thursday is the last day of our work week as Muslims observe Friday as their holy day). On the way home, my coworker mentions a hardware store called "AGO" or "APO" or something to that effect in my immediate (walk-able) area. Google maps doesnt turn up a thing, so I run a grid pattern through the city on Friday morning and come up with absolutely nothing.
I'm back in my room about 11am, and it's already getting hot.
I decide I'm not going to get beat, so instead of giving up I'm going to hit up this "Friday Market" I've been hearing so much about. Apparently you can find ANYTHING there. Short story long, Neil (previously pictured) and I snag a cab.
We get to the end of the first building (about 250 yards long, and maybe 75 yards wide. Chock full of stands chock full of stuff) and look down what seems to be an endless row of equally sized buildings...
We're overwhelmed.
We look and look and look and NO ONE has a set of AC servicing gauges.
"I just think it's 'too special' of a tool for them to have here" Neil says
"dude, we're in the desert. EVERYONE has AC, there HAS to be at least ONE set of gauges SOMEWHERE in here" I reply.
But we look and look and look and I'm showing people pictures on my cell phone, they point me left, so I walk left, stand after stand after stand, until the next guy I show a picture to points me right, ... We're officially striking out. We're both getting a bit tired and heat fried so we call it a day.
Here's a few pictures I snapped.
I get back to my room and I'm just stumped. I mean, how can you go through a place like that and NOT find what you're looking for!?! This place had migs, tigs, pigs, stigs, air compressors, generators, washers, dryers, radio fliers, and town criers... You name it and I saw it in there somewhere!
But no AC gauges.
So I got a plan. I open up google maps and snag a satellite image of the place.
(see that spot marked "saveco"? that's full on grocery store. Compare the size of that place to one roof of the Friday Market )
And that gives me my backup plan... I think the biggest Ace Hardware in the country is walking distance, so I snag it's location as well:
I figure if I cant find what I need (again) at the Friday Market, then maybe we can GRM our way into this through that huge hardware store. I fill my take out coffee cup, put 6-bottles of water in a backpack with some snacks, and again I find myself in a cab...