944 Turbo Maintenance

Since summer is headed our way in Kansas, it is awfully nice to have a good working A/C system. Unfortunately, this car’s system stopped functioning last fall, so it was time to get it repaired before the season gets too hot.

While I had the car, the owner wanted me to slap the a new rear M030 968 sway bar on to improve the handling. He had already installed the front, but hadn’t gotten to the rear yet, so I helped out with that.

Old swaybar next to the new sway bar. The bars are larger diameter, and the rear is 3 way adjustable, allowing the ability to fine tune the vehicles handling in the corners.

And the new bar in place. Starting with the middle setting, and we will adjust from there depending on the handling.

Then it was time to figure out what was going on with the AC. The system still had a very small charge in it, but not enought to do any cooling. Freon doesn’t disappear in the system, if the system gets low, that means there is a leak somewhere, and the freon has escaped. The trick is finding out where the leak is at. Using a leak detector, I was able to find the high side valve leaking. A quick demonstration on how the unit detects the leaking gas. Fired up, it beeps a slow beep until it detects freon.

At which point it starts to beep faster depending on the severity of the leak.

This system was still set up for the old R12 freon, which has been outdated and is now quite expensive. There are newer, more environmentally friendly replacement freons on the market now such as R134a, which has been used since the early 90’s. So to fill with R134a, we need to drop the compressor out, drain the compressor of the old R12 lubricating oil, fill with R134a oil, reinstall, convert the valves to R134a valves (fixing the leak at the same time), replace the dryer and o rings, and charge the system. Fairly involved work.

Stay tuned…..

944944 TurboA/C leakconversionPorscheR12R134a