Be sure to maintain a clean orifice

[Ike Clanton]

I changed mine when I did some AC work recently when I replaced all hoses and the receiver/dryer. The dryer was all of $4(!) from RockAuto on closeout!

I assume this is 25 years of crud, but it could have been changed at some point.

Was going to put another blue one back in it, but went with red based on some advice I saw.

I have to say that doing this job on my box TC was NOT hard. Everything is right there for the most part, and no one should be afraid of doing this work. I rented a vacuum pump, manifold and gauge set, and orifice removal tool from AutoZone.

Of course, it is apparently somewhat probable that the orifice tube will break when removing it, and then you have to butcher the evaporator and install a little kit to fix it. So, caution. But mine worked fine.



You can see the new red orifice installed. That evaporator pipe is not as dirty as that picture makes it look...

[gadget73]

With that much crap on it, I'd have to suspect something blew up. The black death is usually the compressor internals self-destructing. Beware of potential other problems in that system.


There is a tool to remove that, but nobody has it. It looks sort of like a bayonet lamp socket. Basically it pushes in and you turn it to lock onto those little plastic tabs sticking out of the side of the tube. Then you just pull it out.

[Ike Clanton]

With that much crap on it, I'd have to suspect something blew up. The black death is usually the compressor internals self-destructing. Beware of potential other problems in that system.

There is a tool to remove that, but nobody has it. It looks sort of like a bayonet lamp socket. Basically it pushes in and you turn it to lock onto those little plastic tabs sticking out of the side of the tube. Then you just pull it out.

The car is 25 years old. If it pops, it pops. I'll clean all out and start over if it does. In the mean time, it makes good pressure and will freeze your tits off. And if that tiny amount of crud is the black death, that's a pretty lame death if it won't even block the whole screen.

Auto Zone rents the tool.