Honda Car Forum

My compressor calls for pag oil iso 46 and i was ready to put in the oil
when I thought to myself that maybe its a bad idea.

My car originally was an r12 system and was half ass retrofitted for r134a.
I'm not sure if the oil in it is pag or ester based or a mix of something
you'd find in those quickie conversion kits. In any case i prefer to use
ester based oil in my a/c system b/c pag will react with the residual
mineral oil in my system and create the black death.

I see that ester oil only comes in a iso 100 viscosity.

If my compressor states that only pag 46 must be used would I be playing
with fire to try and use ester?

Thanks

On Wed, 2 Jun 2004, Steve wrote:

> My compressor calls for pag oil iso 46 and i was ready to put in the oil
> when I thought to myself that maybe its a bad idea. My car originally
> was an r12 system and was half ass retrofitted for r134a. I'm not sure
> if the oil in it is pag or ester based or a mix of something you'd find
> in those quickie conversion kits.

At this point any guess you make stands great odds of only making things
worse. Stop, evacuate, flush completely and do a proper retrofit. It will
cost you a lot less time, money and aggravation.

-Stern

On Wed, 02 Jun 2004 06:12:11 GMT, "Steve" <idontthinkso@pissoff.com> wrote:

>My compressor calls for pag oil iso 46 and i was ready to put in the oil
>when I thought to myself that maybe its a bad idea.
>
>My car originally was an r12 system and was half ass retrofitted for r134a.
>I'm not sure if the oil in it is pag or ester based or a mix of something
>you'd find in those quickie conversion kits. In any case i prefer to use
>ester based oil in my a/c system b/c pag will react with the residual
>mineral oil in my system and create the black death.

It depends on what "half ass" means? If the R-12 was not completely
removed, which is the usual recommended procedure for retro-fits (removal),
the PAG oil with R-12 is apparently what causes "black death" - the
chlorine in CFC apparently reacts with PAG badly. POE in a retrofit is
never recommended by the auto mfrs in a retrofit where the old lube is left
in - see: http://www.delanet.com/~pparish/gen-rp.htm and links from it,
and here:
http://www.ackits.com/forum/messagev...AR_MSGDBTABLE=
but I'm not sure why. The mfrs say that the R-12 petroleum lubricant will
not mix with PAG and will "park", one assumes out of harms way; they don't
say what happens with a mix of POE and petroleum lubricant, which apparetly
do mix.

>I see that ester oil only comes in a iso 100 viscosity.
>
>If my compressor states that only pag 46 must be used would I be playing
>with fire to try and use ester?

If you've flushed the system, the specialists seem to recommend POE.

Rgds, George Macdonald

"Just because they're paranoid doesn't mean you're not psychotic" - Who, me??