If You Need to Recharge AC System, Try the Redtek Stuff
 

Yes, this is an testimonial. Unpaid: the best kind.

Recently I decided to see if I could actually get the AC in my '82 GSL I bought 2 years ago working, so I could actually drive it for more than 3-4 months of the year here in Texas.

The compressor clutch was not energizing when the AC switch was on, so Step 1, I put the good old HFT gauges on (after cleaning them super well to make sure no R-134 compatible PAG could find its way into the RX-7's system just in case it hadn't been upgraded) and the system was empty.

Wasn't sure if the system had been upgraded to R-134 -- it had an R-12-to-R-134 quick connect adapter on the low side but this appears to be a common update on many R-12 systems -- so rather than open it up, flush it and convert to R-134 (I still haven't found a good explanation as to how to actually do the upgrade: is it the compressor, compressor plus expansion valve, etc.), I decided to try that R12a stuff from Redtek.

It is supposed to be a bridge refrigerant in that it will work in both R12 and R134 systems.

Put one $20 6oz can (it claims to be the equivalent of 18oz of R-12 or R-134) in at ambient pressure per instructions (no need to pull vacuum first), and viola, ice cold AC for the past 3+ months (so either no leak or a slow leak: the R12a supposedly works at lower pressure and is a bigger molecule so less prone to small leaks) here in Texas (so it can overcome 100+ degree ambient air temp differentials and still give me vent air in the 40s -- I'm talking about face hurting, turn-it-down kind of cold).

IMHO, a freaking miracle as usually these "too good to be true" solutions are just that. Best $20 I ever spent on one of my cars.

Anyhow, for anyone who has been running w/o AC because they don't want to deal with the hassle of finding R12 (and paying an arm-and-leg for it), I thought I would share my experience with the AC equivalent of a miracle drug.

Now, onto my 924S, which unfortunately has a leak somewhere in the system I have to find first.

Good to hear.

Awesome report, thanks for the feedback! Cool to hear that something like that works as well as intended.

I'll be re-installing an entire A/C system on my personal car once it's back up and running again and most likely running R152a in it. I've done the conversion on 3 different vehicles and it's worked perfectly on all of them for extended periods of time. Plus one of the biggest writeups of the R152a was done by an RX-7 owner, so I feel like paying homage to him by doing so.

Same as DIR, I 've done quite a few R152a conversions and they work great.