From: Neon John <johngd@bellsouth.net> Subject: Re: R134A retrofit Message-ID: <38D34F27.62011FA6@bellsouth.net> Date: Sat, 18 Mar 2000 04:41:28 EST Newsgroups: rec.outdoors.rv-travel John Adler wrote: > Has any one done the freon conversion on a chevy 1988 vintage i did it > on a 88 jeep cheroke with great results > John e mail qlty@webtv.net You've gotten some good input regarding the problems with 134a conversions. I'd like to add a bit more since I've been intimately involved in this issue from the beginning. 134a is pretty piss-poor even for new vehicles designed for it. The molecule has been around for a long time but was regarded as unsuitable as a practical refrigerant because of its incompatibility with lubricants. When the ozone layer hoax came along, there were several alternatives to R-12 and more were developed. But the industry leaders took the opportunity to guarantee themselves a continuing revenue stream by getting 134a adopted as the officially blessed substitute. As told to me by a DuPont heir at an ASHRAE meeting, they desired to get the "free" (patent-expired) molecules off the market and get some newly patented ones out there to generate a continuing royalty revenue stream. This they did with amazing directness and brutality, squishing everyone who got in the way. I have the scars to prove it. Details are probably sufficiently off-topic to pass for this article but I'll highlight. The problem they had to overcome was the one that makes 134a unsuitable in the first place - no compatible oil. Poly Alkyl Glycol (PAG) was basically a placeholder, a substance that would mix sufficiently well with 134a while being at least a little bit slick. It is a first cousin to brake fluid and has most of the negative properties - hydroscopic, intolerant of water, low lubricity, incompatible with many rubbers and chemically unstable. Of particular concern to us is the fact that is tolerates almost no chlorine residue which makes doing a PROPER conversion very difficult. A funny thing happened on the way to the bank. "Good" lubricants were slow coming and so many systems were rolled out with PAG. Early rollouts were disastrous. Massive compressor failures, recalls and so on. Better lubes are available now, such as Polyol Alky lubricant (POL) but PAG is very entrenched and POL's market penetration is small. As I mentioned, PAG's biggest problem is that it is intolerant of moisture or chlorine. This makes doing a PROPER conversion very complex and expensive. For the chloride residue problem as well as the fact that 134a is a smaller molecule, all hoses must be SAE barrier type. If your vehicle does not have barrier hose (will say "barrier hose" on the hose), 134a will diffuse right through it - if the compressor doesn't fail from lubricant breakdown first. To see what happens to PAG oil under various conditions, go here: http://www.autofrost.com/hotshot/index.html. The "hotshot" refrigerant George talks about in that article contains some R-22 which brings the chloride ion into the picture and is responsible for what happens to the oil. In addition to changing the hoses, all traces the old mineral oil must be removed. Not only does the old oil carry chlorine from the old refrigerant, it is immiscible with 134a and will collect in low points, impairing the efficiency of the system if allowed to remain. The dryer must be changed because the old style is incompatible with 134a in addition to holding lots of chlorides. Now I know that there are kits out there that purport to make conversions just a matter of squirting in some magic juice and then pumping in 134a. I just shake my head in disgust at these. Both George and I have tested these kits and saw compressor failures, sometimes literally in days after installation. I don't know how in the world these kits are legally sold. So the first steps to a PROPER conversion include changing out the hoses and the dryer. The other components must be cleaned of all old oil. I used to use R-11 for this before it was banned. I use N-Hexane now when I can get it and liquid propane when I can't. The reason I go to all this trouble and don't just use some common solvent is that such low vapor pressure solvents tend to penetrate the rubber and then diffuse back out later when the system is in service. The solvents will also contaminate your vacuum and recovery system. If your system has either high or low head pressure switches, they must be changed too, because they trap oil and chlorides and can't be flushed. If your AC is marginal with R-12 (many imports), it will be worse with 134a. You lose an average of 10% cooling capacity when you do a conversion. I recommend installing a larger condenser if practical to help compensate for this. When this issue started developing around 1990, I became so upset with the nasty politics and the poor performance of the "solution" to the R-12 ban that I started researching substitutes. My first cut was a hydrocarbon mix of iso-butane and propane. Worked great, better efficiency, complete oil computability. But the scream of horror from the safety lobby and MACS that this stuff is "flammable" (well duh, so is gasoline and the propane used by propane-fueled vehicles) made it obvious that a flammable refrigerant would not do. Europeans seem not so hung up on this and many domestic refrigerators are now using hyrocarbon mixes as "green" refrigerants. About that time I met George Gobble on the net. George is a computer scientist at Purdue and was also a refrigeration hacker. We found that we were working on almost exactly parallel paths and decided to combine effort to develop a substitute for R-12. To make a long story short, my attention drifted off to other projects including publishing a car magazine while George went on to perfect a substitute, patent it and put it on the market. I continued helping him as I could, doing testing, developing instrumentation that would work it it and so on. Everyone lived happily ever after, right? NOT! George, being a scientist at heart and innocent of the ways of big time politics, presented some papers on the refrigerant at ASHRAE meetings while the patent was pending. Reaction was overwhelmingly good. Carrier wanted to "use" it in their mobile applications as did several other big guys. Then George got his patent. Da shit hit da fan. Faced with having to license this stuff or any derivative (good patent attorney :-), suddenly this stuff and George was persona non grata. At the same time, the industry was abuzz with visions of pots of gold at their beck and call from the anticipated income from doing 134a conversions. The estimated cost of doing a proper conversion was $1200 (not far off) and the trade journals were prattling about how many million cars would have to be converted and the $$$ involved. George's refrigerant was going to throw a wrench into that money machine. Suddenly at the behest of the president of Four Seasons, the company poised to make the most money from conversion components, who was also the prez of the Mobile Air Conditioning Society (MACS) and the SAE Committee on alternative refrigerants, EPA withdrew George's SNAP approval, effectively taking it off the market. It took getting Bush's bought-and-paid-for EPA out of office after his defeat to get this turned around. Then UL chimed in, promulgating a flammability standard that even R-12 couldn't have passed. This was aimed directly at George's refrigerant which contains a minor percentage of propane. He modified his formula to meet the requirement, again, at great expense and time. To make another long story short, after about 5 years and hundreds of thousands of dollars of legal fees and an election, he got his SNAP approval reinstated. So. Now you can buy a replacement refrigerant that is completely compatible with R-12 components, can even be mixed with R-12 (though EPA says it's illegal to do so), uses the same old mineral oil that is currently in the system AND brings an average 10% IMPROVEMENT in cooling over R-12. IF your system is marginal, this refrigerant will improve things. The refrigerant is called R-406a and is available either directly from here: http://www.autofrost.com/frmain.html or from distributors nationwide. It's cost is on par with 134a to boot. R-406a is a blend of refrigerants and some of the molecules are small, requiring the installation of barrier hose. This is a good idea in any event, because with barrier hose, you will lose NO refrigerant through the hoses. Assuming your compressor seals are good, the annual spring freon recharge will be the thing of the past. The first charge of refrigerant will likely last the life of the vehicle. My wife's 90 model toyota was one of the early cars to get barrier hoses from the factory and the factory R-12 charge is still in it. You must have an EPA "green card" to buy this refrigerant. The easiest way to get it is here: http://www.imaca.org/training.htm at IMACA. Click the "609 Certification" to take an on-line short course and test. If you pay with a credit card and pass the silly little test, they give you a file to print a temporary green card right there on the spot. If you can read and know anything about refrigeration, you can go from sign on to green card in a half hour or less for $20. You also will need recovery equipment to reclaim the R-12 and any R-406a that you may need to remove from the system, at least if you want to be legal. Best bet is probably to get a refrigeration shop to reclaim the old R-12 and then work with your garage door closed :-) A recovery unit can easily be built from the compressor and condenser from an old refrigerator. If you do work for hire, your recovery unit must be UL approved (thanks to those nice guys at MACS) but you can do your own work with anything that works. If you don't want to go the R-406a route, there is an alternative. It is as follows: * Get your green card. * Have barrier hoses installed. * If necessary, have the compressor seals fixed or install a new (NOT rebuilt) compressor. * Buy the necessary number of blow-off cans of R-12 using your green card. * charge the system. * Buy a few extra cans to make sure you can make up for any leakage over the period of time you plan on keeping the vehicle. If your compressor seals are good and there are no leaks, the charge will never leak out. If you lack the necessary leak checking equipment, it might be a good idea to allow a shop to do the initial charge. I see loss-leader specials on AC service all the time where the price charged doesn't even cover the cost of the R-12. Have your green card, buy some extra cans of R-12 and be prepared. Frankly, R-12 is going to be around for a LONG time. All the EPA ban has done is to turn it into smuggled contraband. India still makes it, as do some south american countries. I believe Iran does too. Customs has stopped propane tanker trucks full of it at the Mexican border and they know they stop only a fraction. Regulations allow the unlimited sale and use (subject to the green card) of "recovered and recycled" R-12. Smuggled R-12 is "laundered" by introducing it into the recovery stream. You do want to buy brand names at reputable car parts stores and pay the price. There is a lot of cheap black market R-12 out there. We've tested some of it and found it to be saturated with moisture. Sure-fire way to destroy your system. If you have a shop do the work, make damn sure reputable R-12 is used. A little note on Icor's HOTSHOT before I close. This is a heavily marketed R-12 substitute. It has an interesting history. In the beginning, George hired Icor to package and label R-406a. He later discovered that they'd appropriated his formula and with a minor change, put it on the market as HOTSHOT. One of George's central patent claims is the technique of using blend components to properly transport oil in an R-12 system. George took legal action against ICOR and the result was they had to change the formula enough not to infringe on George's oil transport claim. The result is HOTSHOT DOES NOT PROPERLY TRANSPORT OIL! It will allow the evaporator to become oil-locked and will starve the compressor of oil. I have tested it and verified that it does not transport oil. Use at your own risk. Since it is typically more expensive than R-406a (have to pay for all that marketing and litigation, after all :-), there is no incentive to use it. All of the other purported R-12 substitutes such as Freeze-12 share this problem of poor to no oil transport. Read about it here: http://www.autofrost.com/oil/index.html. If the compressor is starved of oil, it absolutely positively will be destroyed. Damn, that got kinda long, didn't it? :-) Claimer: I helped in small ways develop this product but I have no financial ties of any sort to either it or George. We're now just good friends and he has a really good product. PS: Go here: http://ghg.ecn.purdue.edu/ and enjoy George's web page. Down toward the bottom, take a look at his method for starting a charcoal fire. The MPEG movie really is worth downloading. John -- John De Armond johngdSPAMNOT@bellsouth.net http://neonjohn.4mg.com Neon John's Custom Neon Cleveland, TN "Bendin' Glass 'n Passin' Gas" From: Neon John <johngdNOSPAM@bellsouth.net> Subject: Re: R134A retrofit Message-ID: <38D7C7D2.16422743@bellsouth.net> Date: Tue, 21 Mar 2000 14:05:28 EST Newsgroups: rec.outdoors.rv-travel Mike Niemela wrote: > > Neon John wrote a lengthy post on this topic. All I can say is BRAVO. > Having been in the HVAC business and having a son who still runs it I am > well aware of the problems/headaches the R-12 hoax has caused. John's > message is bang on target and should be required reading for anyone with > an over the road AC system. Thank you, Mike. There's a whole lot more to this story but it's sufficiently off-topic to this group that I won't post it here. Suffice to say that there's a red-hot trail of money and deceit and intrigue that would make a good novel, were it not true. This certainly isn't the largest screw job the American people have been delivered by special interests wallowing in the public trough but it's the biggest one I've been directly involved with. Couple of interesting tidbits. A couple of years ago George read to me over the phone a letter he'd received as a stockholder of DuPont. He bought some stock so he could rabble-rouse at stockholder meetings. The letter was from some high muckety-muck that basically apologized to the stockholders for so greedily pushing the Montreal protocol (what initiated this freon hysteria.) Second tidbit. While the question is relatively settled that stratospheric chlorine disassociates ozone molecules, two other issues are not. One, the biggie - what the ozone hole really means (not gonna wade into that one) and two, the almost-as-biggie - how the chlorine gets to the stratosphere. One side, which I tend to side with, says that the sources are natural. For example, When Mt. Pinatubo (sp?) blew, it ejected more chlorine into the stratosphere than all the CFCs man has made. The other side, championed by NASA, claims that terrestrial CFCs does it. Important to realize in this discussion that there are two "NASA"s. One flies spacecraft and explores the universe and the other sucks funding for social research (sic) and social engineering. The Ozone Bunch falls into the latter category. MAJOR funding is contingent on the ozone issue continuing to be a BIG THING. A few years ago, we had just listened to a NASA talking head give a presentation at a meeting where he described the Ozone Problem as the worst thing facing mankind. After the talk, we strode up to chat with the guy. George chatted a moment and then dropped the bombshell question - If NASA is so sure that terrestrial CFCs are responsible for the ozone hole, where is the tracer data? The sputtering and sidestepping was worthy of Klinton. This is an excellent question to ask anyone who hawks the Ozone Myth. By tracer data, I mean data that shows the actual transport of chlorine to the stratosphere. In a nutshell, it is known that chlorine is in the stratosphere and it is believed that it damages the ozone. It is known that there are CFCs down on the ground. There is no hard data to show the transport mechanism to get the CFCs from the ground to the sky. NASA relies on computer models which in this case represent a special case of GIGO (garbage in, garbage out) called BSIMO (bullshit in, money out.) Models give you any answer you want, depending on the assumption set. It would be EASY to actually trace the movement of CFCs if anyone wanted to. All that is required is to tag some CFC with radioactive Cl-36. Since Cl-36 does not occur to any extent in nature, if tagged CFC is released on the ground and tagged CFC shows up in the stratosphere a few years latter, then the model is proved. If not, then it's time to go back to the drawing board. Funny thing, not one single agency has yet done anything like this, to my knowledge. It seems particularly strange since this would be an excellent source of funding. So if you ever get a chance, ask an ozone hole proponent where the tracer data is. You'll get either a dumb, blank stare (if they're true believers with no scientific background) or profuse sputtering and dodging. > The total cost to the motoring public by this R-12 scam is unbelievable. You think that's bad, you ought to see what it's done to large refrigeration facilities like grocery stores which use tons of R-12 in the cooler systems and very large centrifugal chiller users like large buildings. At least we drivers have a fair (R-134a) to good (R-406a) substitute. For a variety of reasons, they don't. John -- John De Armond johngdSPAMNOT@bellsouth.net http://neonjohn.4mg.com Neon John's Custom Neon Cleveland, TN "Bendin' Glass 'n Passin' Gas" From: Neon John <johngdNOSPAM@bellsouth.net> Subject: Re: R134A retrofit Message-ID: <38D7CC6B.33B8A2AA@bellsouth.net> Date: Tue, 21 Mar 2000 14:25:04 EST Newsgroups: rec.outdoors.rv-travel Dusty Bleher wrote: > > "Neon John" <johngd@bellsouth.net> wrote in message > news:38D34F27.62011FA6@bellsouth.net... > > > > > <snipped> > > refrigerant because of its incompatibility with lubricants. When > > the ozone layer hoax came along, there were several alternatives to > > Ya know, John, I too have been wondering about the relationship between CF's > and ozone. My high school chemistry left me with an excellent general > chemistry understanding. But I've never been able to puzzle out the actual > mechanics involved in this so called "serious problem". Ozone is a > continuously created and regenerated resource. Requiring only sunshine (the > high energy kind found at high altitudes) and oxygen... > > When ever I've gone to anybody associated with the environmental activists > that promote this as a "problem", I usually get a sort of sad and > patronizing look, and an explanation pretty well summed up as, "Look, we > both know you're too dumb to understand the real reasons behind this > complicated chemistry. But you can trust us, we're working with the > government on your behalf...". > > Can somebody explain to this farmboy just what it is that's supposed to be > happening? And why, whenever something needs to be done, it's always me and > my things that get targeted first? Minus all the arm-waving, this is really easy, at least to understand the lab experiments on which this theory is based. Oxygen and chlorine both normally exist as diatomic molecules. That is, two atoms of oxygen bind together to make O2, ditto for chlorine. The atomic versions of these elements are too reactive to exist for any period of time by themselves. Bleach, for example, works by releasing atomic oxygen and to a lesser extent atomic chlorine which oxidize stains to transparent and/or soluble materials. It is obvious that nothing happens when those stains are exposed to the diatomic version of oxygen (air). Ozone is simply a 3 molecule version of oxygen (O3). It is unstable and so breaks down into diatomic oxygen and monatomic oxygen. Two monatomic oxygens grab each other (if they can't find anything else) and all is happy. In the stratosphere, ultraviolet light breaks the diatomic atoms of oxygen. Some of the atomic oxygen finds other diatomic oxygen molecules, binds on and makes ozone. Ozone, in turn, absorbs more UV (keeping us all from burning up, Aeeeeeeeee), disassociates into diatomic oxygen and atomic oxygen and the process repeats. During the day, an equilibrium proportional to the UV radiation quickly establishes. If diatomic (ordinary) chlorine is in the stratosphere, the same thing happens, only in the case of atomic chlorine, it is so reactive that it will strip off an oxygen from ozone if it can find a molecule of it. this takes an ozone molecule out of circulation. The ClO molecule is more stable so it sticks around until itself is broken down by UV and the process repeats. The problem is, this process takes a lot of oxygen out of circulation and so ozone is depleted and the hole appears. Allegedly. Here's where it gets kinky. Supposedly the chlorine is transported to the stratosphere by the very heavy CFC molecule which somehow survives until it reaches the stratosphere before being broken apart. The explanation for this is to me, tenuous at best. What really gets me is the proponents of this claim that CFCs are horribly efficient at this while at the same time dismissing the molecular chlorine and chlorine in the form of salt injected into the stratosphere in vastly larger quantities by volcano eruptions. This is the point in the explanation where the arm waving and patronizing tone usually starts. > > How did we manage to let an out-of-control outfit like the EPA first mandate > MTBE's into our gas of our cars and RV's; causing the price to rise. We had > no say in the matter. It was just kinda, "Shut up idiot! We're with the > government. We know what we're doing and what's good for you!". Now > they've decided that MTBE's are not so good after all--something they > couldn't determine before hand; and the price of my gas has to go up again, > to get that stuff removed... Every great republican civilization in history has gone down when control of the force of the state has been allowed to fall into the hands of the do-nothings. when people yawn at issues like this while getting militant at any suggestion of cuts on government largess, how can we expect our civilization to progress any other way? To me, giving the vote to those without means or accomplishment was a trap door through which we can't return via peaceful means. John -- John De Armond johngdSPAMNOT@bellsouth.net http://neonjohn.4mg.com Neon John's Custom Neon Cleveland, TN "Bendin' Glass 'n Passin' Gas" From: Neon John <johngdNOSPAM@bellsouth.net> Subject: Re: R134A retrofit Message-ID: <38D86B5B.FB40397C@bellsouth.net> Date: Wed, 22 Mar 2000 01:42:41 EST Newsgroups: rec.outdoors.rv-travel Mike Niemela wrote: > Once again Neon John has added to the information the general public > should have. The cost to industry and retailers is a good point. It > all comes back to the consumer. > > One thing that should be mentioned, since we are so far off topic > anyway, is the weight of R-12. It floats in the air like a bowling ball > floats in water. The average home refrigerator will have about a four > ounce charge of R-12. This will blow up a balloon to about the size of > a medium grapefruit. Hold it out chest high and drop it and it hits the > floor pronto. Not about to drift off toward outer space. Thanks for the kind words, Mike. You have to be a bit careful with your above experiment, for it doesn't take into account turbulent mixing nor diffusion. Mixing is pretty obvious - wind, weather, vehicles moving, etc. This will mix CFCs in the air pretty thoroughly and prevent it settling. Diffusion isn't so obvious. A demonstration I used to use when I taught high school physics will illustrate. Consider elemental bromine. A heavy volatile liquid element with a high vapor pressure. It readily evaporates in air, yielding a nice, visible brownish orange, foul gas which, according to the other side, has a much higher ODP (ozone depletion potential) than chlorine. The vapor is so heavy that it can be poured from one beaker to another with very little mixing with air. yet if a drop of bromine liquid is placed in the bottom of a large jar and the jar capped, when one returns in a day, the whole bottle will be filled with a uniform orange/brown color. The molecular motion of air components and the bromine molecules causes them to mix in accordance with well established equations. The problem with applying diffusion dynamics to atmospheric phenomena is, of course, that the atmosphere isn't a nice, controlled laboratory environment. Figuring out how diffusion really works on a large scale is one of the keys to accurate weather forecasting. T'ain't easy! If you think the freon issue is bad, consider the Halon situation. Halon is a family brominated fluorocarbons (BFC). Halons are the best known fire suppression agents. Unlike other agents which either exclude oxygen or cool the fuel, Halon actually interferes with the chemical process of oxygen. Not only is it fast - fast enough to stop an incipient explosion in progress - but it is also completely effective at concentrations that are not hazardous to life. That means that Halon can be discharged into inhabited spaces and not put the inhabitants at any risk. Military planes contain fire detection and suppression systems that are so fast they can detect and suppers an explosion before it can grow large enough to cause any damage. Pretty much the ideal fire suppressant. One problem. The eco nuts have decided that BFCs are even worse on the ozone than CFCs. This is all part of the GREAT DEBATE but it is irrelevant to halon use because once deployed and tested, Halon is never released to the environment unless life or property is immediately at stake. Yet the Grand Wizards of EPA prohibited the manufacture of Halon along with the CFCs. The result is, the situation is critical in many sectors. The military has been hoarding and stockpiling Halon for years. There is no substitute in that environment. Another major use for Halon is in race cars. A company has claimed to have a substitute but it is a liquid agent and relies on smothering, as far as anyone knows. Halon is clearly superior in this life safety situation. I intend to install an automatic race car Halon system in my MH but the cost is rising faster than I can afford. Yet another major use is fire suppression in nuclear safety systems. My company used to deploy and certify nuclear fire suppression systems. They are used in places such as inside the control boards where systems must absolutely, positively function despite fire in an adjacent area. Halon will continue to be deployed but the cost is skyrocketing and we can no longer do end-to-end tests where we discharged the system and measured the concentration to verify sufficient Halon to quell a fire. The only substitute is high pressure carbon dioxide which extinguishes fires by smothering them (and any humans in the area). I was in the computer room at Browns Ferry Nuclear Plant when the CO2 (Cardox) system (that was replaced with Halon for human safety reasons) went off without warning. There was a second of air discharge before the CO2 arrived, which is the only thing that saved our lives. When it hit, it was instant whiteout and an instant sensation of strangling. Had we not already been lunging for the door, we would have surely died. A Halon system protecting the same area would have annoyed us with the loud noise and faintly pungent odor but we could have strolled out at our convenience since the Halon-containing air would still be breathable. Unfortunately to the True Believers (and make no mistake, to the radicals, environmentalism IS a religion), the value of human life comes secondary to The Environment. Their literature says as much. Some theoretical, unproven harm to Mother Environment is more important than proven harm to humans. Sad, very sad. Speaking of politics and nuts :-), anyone considering voting on the Democratic side this fall should go to the library and check out a copy of Gore's book, "Earth in the Balance". (please don't buy a copy and give the prick a dime.) You'll see that Gore is one of Those. Especially read the part about internal combustion engines and his final solution. Contemplate what big, boxy homes on wheels would be his prime target, just to wind this back around to RVing. OK, that's my soapbox for the month. Back to having fun (Fiddling while Rome burns?) John -- John De Armond johngdSPAMNOT@bellsouth.net http://neonjohn.4mg.com Neon John's Custom Neon Cleveland, TN "Bendin' Glass 'n Passin' Gas" |