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Subject The Z is putting me to work! HID + AC conversion & then some
     
Posted by zQuikonE on September 11, 2012 at 1:11 AM
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Just sharing some recent stuffs that just got did on my Z. Excuse the odd image sizes and quality. I did what I can with the camera phone while working on the car.

First off, headlights get retrofitted with Honda S2K HID projectors.

My headlights have been fogging up after car washes, rain, and humid weather so the fix was to use Z32 headlights that were retrofitted and freshly sealed with Honda S2K projectors. iceman601 who posted his HERE made me a set for some a beer and some Z parts. He's probably retired after this set. Something about having kids and a newborn to deal with or something like that. :P

You can see here where the sealant had failed towards the front of the headlight. Dirt is stuck to the sealant where it wasn't meeting the glass anymore which allowed moisture in. It ruined the shroud and the chrome so take care of it when you can!

Headlights come off without bumper removal thanks to Bernie's write-up. Cleaning supplies ready to go and get them headlight buckets sparkling.

All buttoned up

Testing in the garage. I did take a drive later that night and everything is working and aimed well. We haven't had time for "real" night shots yet though. I can definitely say it is a new experience driving at night and this is coming from using a 9006 rebase / phillips hid kit.

Next up, fixing the AC. I ended up converting to R134a using an old style TT condenser (converting from NA condenser). Using the old style condenser is working well for me. The car cools down very quickly even on a hot summer day after the interior has been heatsoaked all afternoon. Thanks to aliaz for dropping all the details needed for this conversion. All of his posts have all the info you need to do this. I didn't find it too complicated, just labor intensive.

First off, get a front clip home so I can take the TT condenser from it. The rest got discarded as it is not needed for this project :)

You can see the TT condenser is much more narrow than the NA one. I flushed the condenser really well before installation and even some more after installation. Paranoia, son!!

Then the problems begin. As I reverse the Z in the garage to give me some space to work up front, I hear a lot of noise from the idler bearings AND the power steering pump. In the midst of the AC conversion, work to do a 60k job and replace the power steering pump begin now too. The joys of owning a Z32. Love it.

The timing belt parts that were on the car had about 50K miles on them but were 9 years old this month. I guess it was both the age and the miles that got to them. Lots of freeplay in the bearings and they could be rocked back and forth by hand.

While I wait for the 60K parts to arrive, I continue tearing into the AC system. Interior all tore up and disconnect the AC lines that meet at the firewall.

Its finally out! It took me about 15 minutes to get this out. I just wiggled the blower unit to the right a bit, then wiggled the evap a little bit and kept going between the two until this was free to remove. Installation took about 15 minutes as well. It wasn't as hard as I thought it was so I was grateful for that. I was prepared to fight it an hour each way!

I open it up to clean and flush the entire thing. I also replaced the expansion valve and gutted the TSV.

You can see the two phillips screws here that you remove to start gutting the TSV.

I carefully peeled back all the butyl tape/sheets so I can put it back after I replaced the exansion valve, o-rings, etc... Undo the two screws, and remove this spring clip.

Gutted like a fish!

Removed the old valve cores with a tire valve tool to install the new R134a fittings.

The AC compressor gets yanked out and its a filthy beast. The o-ring on the high side failed and leaked old mineral oil everywhere.

I cleaned it up before removing the lines to avoid dropping debris in during removal. You can also see the pressure relief valve here as well.

I assume this is the drain plug...

... and the fill plug. I flush the compressor here with new ester oil before reinstallation.

And back in it goes after flushing all the lines too.

Installing the TT condenser now. Peeling back a sticker reveals a mounting hole for the TT's. Don'd mind all the dirt in the bay. I'll pressure wash everything whenever I do the TT swap.

In it goes

I used the TT version of the short line between the condenser and the drier. It fit almost perfectly and required very minimal persuasion to get it to work. Sorry this is the only pic I have showing this part. New drier with the correct hi/low binary switch installed.

Here's the side that needed some bending. These are all NA lines on this side where the condenser connects to the lines coming off the compressor.

iceman601 bends it back while I hold it still. 5 minutes of wrestling it later and BAM! Done.

New o-rings were installed everywhere. Every single line got flushed. Every heat exchanger got pressure washed from back to the front inbetween all of this and then reassembly begins. Lots of feathers and dirt stuck here. 20 years of dirt and debris... Gone!

Reassembly continues between cleaning.

We vacuum the system for a tad over an hour total. Vacuum on for 20 minutes. Then held vacuum for 30 minutes and vacuum again just for good measure and hold vac again a tad more just incase! Paranoia again.

Charge it up with R134a after verifying no leaks and drive in the nice cool AC! :)

All the hard work was worth it after this. Pardon the missing screws in the center console. I left everything apart just incase there were any leaks.

This is my latest adventure with my Z. Just gonna enjoy the drive until the next adventure begins.

     
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