My air con is not good, just like most of the exiges… So Im thinking of removing it when ill get home from work… I have searched after some info about the job, couldent quite find what I was looking for… So here I go…
I must remove Condenser,Evaporator,compressor,Receiver-drier and all pipes between them…
I must remove the refrigerant, can I do this from the service ports to vent?? (I know its not recomended)… if not…how??
I must make some kind of modification to the multi-rib drive belt to the compressor… Can I just buy a new different belt which will required no modification… from lotus???
I need to remove the front clampshell+undertrays to get the job done …anything else???
5… How many hours is required??? 6,8,10 ??
6… I assume there is no need for any “special tools”
7… All wires conected to the A/C stuff I havent thought of… can always use some tape and take the fuse out… I might wanna remove them too, if I find its easy…
… Just had to ask… dont want to get started and then figure out I done some kind of mistakes…
For those of you who read about my previous “Exige neightmare”… Guess what !!!.. It has started again … ufff… thought I got cured…uffff…now im scared to go to bed… Dont like my neightmares where my Exige is burning up or crashing to pices or just simply falling appart when ppl is looking at it …
The Refrigerant is actually an oil in this system. Not sure how it should be handled?
It might be worth checking if it needs topping up if it’s not working?
The refrigerant is HFC R134a and is being phased out because its a big no no from the Global Warming perspective, its also highly flammable in vapour form and is pretty corrosive.
Mahaney
I’m pretty sure the oil you have seen is the refrigerant oil - which is basically mixed with the refrigerant gas to lubricate stuff like the compressor - that’s not the actual stuff the does the cooling.
niceguy
Any of your local big car dealers in Norway will tell you how to properly and safely dispose of R134a - its used in most vehicle air-conditioning. In fact its possible that you could sell them the refrigerant from your system because its getting phased out and i think probably not in production thus probably expensive for recharging during maint of cars in for servicing etc… I reckon you should search around and you will find someone to buy it from you
Anyway, it should be disposed of in an environmentally friendly way… Click here to see the UK law which should be similar to your own laws.
If you do take it out - check out the posting about the control valve that is used to stop water flow through the heater matrix when air con is engaged - you need to take out that valve as well - its located on the rhs of the car where the pipe exits the sill at the rear
Ah haaa - I wont trust everything ‘official’ Lotus people tell me from now on! How hard is it to get a straight story? Thanks for the info - pretty manky stuff then?
Mahaney
I’m pretty sure the oil you have seen is the refrigerant oil - which is basically mixed with the refrigerant gas to lubricate stuff like the compressor - that’s not the actual stuff the does the cooling.
OK what I did in the back was remove the compresor and all the pipework. As far as the gas goes, I simply undid the hose and stood well back, with the car outside. Not enviromently friendly I know but hey I recycled the dozen ally cans of Fanta I drank doing the job, so I figure I am even with mother nature.
You will need a non air con alternator mounting bracket and drive belt. I simply went to a scrap yard and the bloke gave me the bracket for nothing from a Rover 100, I then bought a belt from my local motor factors. Changing to the non aircon bracket really makes access better as it moves the alternator up high.
At the front, I removed the clam and the radiator in order to remove the air con rad and pipework.
I simply taped up all of the wireing.
The heater box for the air con car is different and ultimatly I would like to fit a non aircon heater box, but its a fairly awkward job and I don’t recon there is much to be saved.
All in all it took most of the day, if you include removeing and refiting the front clam.
Its all easy to do, just awkward because of access.
Oh the pipes that run through the sill, I simply taped up and left alone.