What Did You Do with Your 80 This Weekend?

[COS80]

I think this might be in my future, too... I noticed a watery/gurgling noise, coming from under the dash, when the compressor was engaged, but I'm not sure what that means.

 

[Old Nick]

I’m replacing the evaporator and the expansion valve as well. Not too difficult to remove them. Unfortunately, rockauto sent me a damaged evaporator. Waiting for a new one. Being that it’s almost a 30 years old evaporator. Might as well replace with a new one.

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I've ordered tons of Denso/Aisin stuff from Rock Auto. Delicate stuff like the evaporator always showed up damaged. They were always good about refunds, but I never understood why they didn't take the time to package things for shipping properly.

I hope that your replacement shows up in good working order.

 

[Old Nick]

I think this might be in my future, too... I noticed a watery/gurgling noise, coming from under the dash, when the compressor was engaged, but I'm not sure what that means.

Likely the condensation isn't draining. You can blow out the drain, but with the air coming from the outside, it will likely just dislodge whatever gunk is in there for a while, then the gurgling will come back after it clogs again. Have you had water from the a/c spill into the ps floor?

Happened a couple of times in my 62. I've just kept blowing it out and waiting for it to clog again.... that's a one of these days type project.

 

[COS80]

Have you had water from the a/c spill into the ps floor?

I have not.

 

[Old Nick]

I have not.

As long as you're still getting the puddle on the pavement after running the a/c and parking your truck, at least you know it's draining. But the gurgling likely means the drain is partially clogged. I'd just blow it out and see if the gurgling stops. You might get a "woosh" of water coming out if there is a partial clog.

 

[wiynwiyn]

Mind sharing the part numbers?

Here you go: NISSENS 92107 Evaporator (Danish Brand). Few other brands but I chose the Nissens. DENSO 4752005, expansion valve. ACDELCO 1510044 Drier. 5 percent off, expires Oct 2nd. May work for you. Code: 350551265306332241. Thanks to @alia176.

A/C system - how to remove the cooling unit, evaporator, expansion valve​

 

[Thealmightyphil]

I’m replacing the evaporator and the expansion valve as well. Not too difficult to remove them. Unfortunately, rockauto sent me a damaged evaporator. Waiting for a new one. Being that it’s almost a 30 years old evaporator. Might as well replace with a new one.

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Good man!

I did enjoy how easy the evaporator was to remove (compared to my previous vehicle the POS Land Rover Discovery 3, where its a 10-14 hour dash removal)

And im with you, if we didnt have a new baby and a partner on maternity leave id just have chucked a new evaporator in there too! But alas, the baby needs nappies.

Tough luck on the evaporator, my condensor did actually arrive slightly damaged too. I got a refund and was allowed to keep the damaged unit...which i bent into shape and chucked in (result!)

Take your time with the reassemble and lube up those o-rings!

Goodluck, I wish you the stiffness of nips!

 

[Jaggysi]

Buckle up readers, I got words and I don't know how to reduce them.

The A/C saga
Well, as you'll see from the referenced post, about a month ago I took it upon myself to finally get my A/C working by replacing a few hard-lines and the A/C condenser (the final pieces of the cold wind puzzle), After 1 job snowballed into 57 jobs and I once again had to sacrifice my time on this mortal plane to the Toyota gods I finally got a working A/C system for the first time in my ownership, and maybe the first time in a decade...

Well ladies and gents, as I sat there, chuffed with myself, driving home with arctic winds showering me from the nut cooler vent I did think to myself.... this is the coldest A/C I have ever felt in my life. At this point I got a foreshadowing epiphany, "I wonder if my expansion valve is stuck wide open"... spoiler alert... it was.

The expansion valve, now thrust violently into forced labour from 10 years of retirement in a non-sealed A/C system went from stuck wide open, to seized closed.... my piss was boiling both physically and emotionally.

How did I know it was the expansion valve?
I could hear a hissing from the evaporator area, the HP side sight glass showed good cooling juice, the compressor ran with gay abandon... But the evaporator inlet and outlet pipe were roughly the same temp, the low pressure side showed 0psi (probably was in vacuum) even though the compressor happily ran, and when I killed the compressor the LP side pressure shot up from 0psi to operational pressures... clearly the compressor was compressing all the refrigerant up against the expansion valve which was just not letting anything through.

And so, the A/C saga was reopened.

The adventure to the valve
First and foremost, some cretinous reprobate toe-rag sat in the passenger seat long ago and stuck their USED CHEWING GUM under the dash, I found this as they had a great affection to sticking it INSIDE THE HEADS OF THE BOLTS I WAS TRYING TO ACCESS
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Anyway I removed that with my teeth and carried on.

Removing the evaporator housing was honestly pretty straight forward, I did nearly have a cry when I just couldn't pop open the big wiring connector but a set of repurposed circlip pliers later and my eyes soon dried up.

The evaporator, the valve, and the schmoo

It looks as though the system has never been removed, and honestly, that's not bad for some 32 years of schmoo collection!

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Given that the evaporator is in pretty good condition and a new evaporator is around £150 but a pressure washin' is free... I decided to just jet wash the 3 decades of filth out and carry on.

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The water initially came out black, and it had a... smell, but after a few minutes of washing at (initially pressures high enough to bend the fins, which i later had to angrily yet delicately bend back) reasonable pressures the water ran clear and I could see clearly though the coil.

Now lets take a look at that valve!

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Comparing the original DENSO unit with my aftermarket Febi Bilstein valve (considerably cheaper) you can see the shaft step in the lower port on the old unit does appear to be stuck in a different position, this gave me hope becasue if it turned out that after all of this I was barking up the wrong tree my piss would have entered super-heated steam territory.

The home stretch
So ive run out of photo allowance on this comment, but in short, I replaced all o-rings with new R134-A rated rings and used PAG oil as an assembly lubricant, I took great care in the evaporator reassembly and install as I didn't want to find I had a leak and have to cry over that stuck loom plug again.

As I have the diesel variant of the 80 I had to refit the timer box for the glow plugs, and I did have a small mental meltdown when I just could not remember where I took it from, the guide on this forum follows petrol engined 80, so makes no mention to this module. LUCKILY as a man who had developed the ability to somewhat learn from his mistakes, I took photos during dissasembly, and I could see i had it upside-down, back to front, and not anywhere near the right place...

I did also try to change the a/c drier as a consumable item, but the one I had been sent was wrong and I have not the time nor effort to wait a week for that delivery, so the old one was put back on.

The result
Ladies, gentlemen, and fellow garage goblins, the system held vacuum and took a charge of cool-juice, the nut vent once more blows cold.

Extra words, notes, and findings
One thing of note, the old expansion valve was absolutely initially stuck wide open, as previously the winds were "ARCTIC, NIPPLES HARD AS GLASS CUTTERS" COLD and ran that way regardless, where as now the vents simply blow cold... and can actually be turned down...

When i removed the evaporator system, (after refrigerant evacuation) a considerable amount of green gloop fell out of the pipes before the expansion valve, more gloop than has come out of any other component iv'e replaced in this saga, seemed again to me like the LP side was in vacuum and the compressor pushed everything, including the dye, PAG oil and everything else up against the closed valve on the HP side. This concern is why I disconnected the compressor electrical plug prior to fixing the valve, as I was concerned the compressor was running essentially dry as all the lubricant was stuck between the compressor and expansion valve (where I also assume the pressure sender is).

Thanks for reading, I am once again happy the ball cooler vent honours my lineage.
And one day i will learn to be concise with my words... but today is not that day.

Hello! After replacing the valve, did the hissing sound disappear? I’m having the same problem with a hissing sound right now, and it’s really annoying when the clutch engages. The hissing seems to be coming from the evaporator side. However, the air coming out isn’t ice-cold.

 

[Thealmightyphil]

Hello! After replacing the valve, did the hissing sound disappear? I’m having the same problem with a hissing sound right now, and it’s really annoying when the clutch engages. The hissing seems to be coming from the evaporator side. However, the air coming out isn’t ice-cold.

Yes, originally there was no hissing sound and the wind was cold, then I stopped getting cold wind at the same time the hissing sound appeared, after replacing the valve, the hissing sound is gone and cold wind has returned. (Constant hissing noise i mean).

Check your high pressure sight glass when the compressor is running and make sure it looks full of liquid and has minimal bubbles, if so feel the two pipes coming out of the bulkhead from the evaporator, one should be warm, one should be cold, if they are kind of the same, sounds like your valve has s*** its pants too.

 

[efjayatee]

What's going back in?

A Turbo! Fast one

 

[NeverFinis]

Here you go: NISSENS 92107 Evaporator (Danish Brand). Few other brands but I chose the Nissens. DENSO 4752005, expansion valve. ACDELCO 1510044 Drier. 5 percent off, expires Oct 2nd. May work for you. Code: 350551265306332241. Thanks to @alia176.

A/C system - how to remove the cooling unit, evaporator, expansion valve​

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Is the Nissens evaporator the same size as OEM (Denso)? When I was shopping, the 3rd party evaporators were smaller in width (depth) and I bit the bullet and bought a Denso from Toyota.

 

[bski90]

Energy Suspension Jeep/Universal Bump Stops PN:9.9137G bolt right in

 

[AussieHJCruza]

Removed PO wiring for 2x trailer plugs and an Anderson plug - beats me why people will go to the extent they do to splice a stack of wires when you could spend a few bucks on some plugs and piggyback into the factory wiring harness.

I doubt it's back to 100% OEM but every connection is soldered, the ones I split apart have heatshrink and everything else has new tape.

Wil try and tuck it up again into some split loom tomorrow.

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Finished this exercise, recreated the factory trailer plug and installed a rear bar wiring harness from @Trail Teq

 

[efjayatee]

Here you go: NISSENS 92107 Evaporator (Danish Brand). Few other brands but I chose the Nissens. DENSO 4752005, expansion valve. ACDELCO 1510044 Drier. 5 percent off, expires Oct 2nd. May work for you. Code: 350551265306332241. Thanks to @alia176.

A/C system - how to remove the cooling unit, evaporator, expansion valve​

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Thanks....putting it onto my ever growing list.

 

[Tim Herald]

Got my Escape Gear seat covers that I picked up a couple of weeks ago in S Africa put in this morning. Huge upgrade. Driver’s seat is in rough shape, and I had some cheap cover king piece of crap cotton cover on it with lots of wrinkles and sag. These fit great and are tough as nails. Match the dash pad, shifter cover and seat back organizer that I already had.

 

[Outsane]

Put in the third turbo

Got coffee with Simon fir a test drive

Put in the shifter plate frim @Delta VS for the manual swap.

 

[77mustard40]

Finally got it out of my parents garage and back to Aspen! The cruisers motor has been back together for a couple months, but I was experiencing a death wobble which ended up being tires. Got 38/11.5r17 Nittos and it is rock solid now.

It was fun breaking in the new motor and getting dialed into the manual. I am still not romping on it as I break it in (and need to put an AFR gauge on it to account for the supercharger with now a 2.8), but there is no doubt it has way more power. Also gearing with the H152 on the highway is perfect with 4.88s and 38s.

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Tell me about your wheels...

 

[Montana Cruiser]

Tell me about your wheels...

Those look like the Analog HD from Fifteen52 to me. Analog HD _ Asphalt Black | Off-Road Truck Wheels | 52OFFROAD - https://fifteen52.com/collections/off-road-truck-wheels/products/analog-hd-asphalt-black

 

[Andrew Bluemel]

Tell me about your wheels...

@Montana Cruiser nailed it. I think they look good, they are light, and super easy to clean. I might switch up the color someday, my truck has a lot of black going on. I think if I were to switch it up, I would do the Analogs in there grey.

 

[77mustard40]

@Montana Cruiser nailed it. I think they look good, they are light, and super easy to clean. I might switch up the color someday, my truck has a lot of black going on. I think if I were to switch it up, I would do the Analogs in there grey.

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If you dont mind me asking which spec 17" did you go with? I'm planning the move to big boy tires and want to make sure they'll stuff. BTW, got a little cabin NW of those mtns