Ok, so hopefully some of you out there are a/c gurus and can help me out. I've just done a retrofit from R12 to 134A on my 1978 Bird. The compressor was locked up, so I dissassembled everything, flushed the system, and replaced the compressor, drier, and oriface/equalizer. I placed 8.5 oz of pag oil in the system (half in the compressor and half in the suction line before the compressor), vacuumed the system, and charged it. Here's the problem: toward the end of the charging process it started sounding like it's got marbles in the compressor. It blows nice and cold, but it seems like it sounds worse every time I run it. Does anyone know if I added the correct amount of oil? Do you think I just got a bad compressor? I couldn't find the info for the oil charge anywhere so it was basically an educated guess. Anybody got a clue?[/align]

 

The sound of "marbles" in the compressor makes me think bad bearings but I'm not a Guru on auto A/C. I guess it is possible that the vanes in the compressor could be chattering because of either too much liquid refrigerantor oil getting to the compressor from the suction line. Are you sure you didn't over-charge the system or is something restricting the airflow across the evaporator coil?

 

The coil is clear and clean, and according to the $80gauges I boughtthe charge is correct. This is why I'm so baffled; I did everything by the textbook and I'm still having problems. The only thing that was a guess was the oil charge, but even that was an educated guess. I suppose I'll probably end up turning this compressor in under warranty.