Last, but not least, I tried their RKR-7 EZ-Chill R-134a Recharging & Retrofit Kit. The kit comes with everything you need to do the retrofit except a vacuum pump. It contains the can tap valve and fittings, charging hose with color coded inline pressure gauge, three service port adapters with protective caps for all cars 1976 and up, including special GM Systems 1991 and up, retrofit label and three cans of refrigerant and oil.

Included also is a CD that has a video detailing the retrofit process. You can also view the same videos online to see if it is something you can do yourself. Windows Media - High Bandwidth Windows Media - Low Bandwidth Real Player - High Bandwidth Real Player - Low Bandwidth

If you have any R12 refrigerant in the system, it should be drained before doing the retrofit. Any shop with the proper equipment will be glad to remove the R12 and vacuum the system at no charge. If there is no R12 left in the system, I recommend pumping the system down before charging with the R134a to make sure no traces of R12 remain.

One thing I wasn't too thrilled about was all the refrigerant in the kit has oil in it. This can lead to overfilling the system with oil. For example, if you did the retrofit on a 1992 Toyota Camry, the system only uses 3.5 ounces of refrigerant oil and 33.5 ounces of refrigerant. The kit comes with three 15 ounce cans of refrigerant of which three ounces of each can are oil.

So if you put in two cans which will give you 24 ounces of refrigerant and 6 ounces of oil, the oil will be over full. This does not include the oil that is already in the system. Too much oil won't hurt the compressor, but it will take up room so there will not be enough refrigerant to efficiently operate the system.

Since R134a is not as an efficient refrigerant as R12, to get the best performance it is important to use just the required amount of oil so you can get the proper amount of refrigerant into the system.

The way I charged the system was to install one 12 ounce can of R134a, p/n NR-134a, then install one 2 ounce can of oil charge, p/n PC-2, and finish by installing the remaining R134a until the system is properly charged.

The kit makes the retrofit fairly easy. Installing the fittings and charging the system will take one to two hours to do. The results were as good as I expected. As I said R134a is not as efficient as R12 and a system converted to R134a will not be as cool as if it had R12. A system designed for R134a has a larger condenser and evaporator to compensate for the inefficiency of the R134a.

All in all, when properly used, these products will perform well and save you a lot of money helping you do it yourself.

InterDynamics
555 White Plains Road
Tarrytown, NY 10591
Phone: (888) 318-5454
consumer@id-usa.com