Sourcing R12 240sx compressor

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Re: Sourcing R12 240sx compressor

Post by Tim »

PromiseRing wrote: Sun Jul 06, 2025 8:46 pm
JohnHere wrote: Sun Jul 06, 2025 8:25 pm
PromiseRing wrote: Sat Jun 28, 2025 5:17 pm Without also swapping the serpentine style condenser for a parallel flow, i would be sacrificing quite a bit of capacity and efficiency from what I’ve read.
Not necessarily.

For what it's worth, until recently, I owned a 1994 Toyota Camry V6 Wagon, bought new, with a factory R-134a system (first year for any Toyota, from what I understand) that had a serpentine condenser and a R/D with a sight glass. This car regularly recorded center vent temperatures in the high 30's, even on 95-degree days in the humid South.
Impressive, but I imagine is was sized accordingly!
It's not about the type of condenser, is it removing the heat load? Heck, you can use an original tube & fin if the heat load is being removed.
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Re: Sourcing R12 240sx compressor

Post by PromiseRing »

JohnHere wrote: Sun Jul 06, 2025 10:11 pm Your condenser might be appropriately sized as well.

In my car, I believe that Toyota used a serpentine condenser and R/D left over from their R-12 vehicles, and they cooled just fine for more than 29 years using R-134a.
Yeah in my experience a lot of the Toyota cars had rather large condensers (and radiators for that matter, too!). Seemingly way oversized for the amount of power my 5SFE makes :D This Nissan seems to be a bit on the smaller side, at least visually. I have plenty of 134a for the future but were going to give it one more shot with R12 and a new TXV.

On that subject, it looks like I’m going to have to make a 134a TXV work. It’ll feed the evap R12 just fine, the only problem is that it physically doesn’t fit. I don’t have the parts in front of me but if i remember right the 134a TXV had a smaller threaded end on the suction side.

Is there any reasonable way to adapt this to the existing lines or am i best off trying to find the AC lines from a 134a car?

This is getting fun!
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