1992-1995 Civic owners - Does your vent fan work poorly ?

[Cd]

EDIT : I meant blower motor within the dash , not the condenser .


I removed the blower motor and cleaned a small amount of leaves in there.
It takes all of five minutes.
I'll test it to see if this improves anything.

Removing the cowl next. I already have the wiper assembly almost off.
It looks as if nothing is clogged in there though when I lift up the cowl cover, and I'm wondering if its worth the trouble.

[Cd]

Reviving this old thread with more of the same questions.
I'm actually driving my car more than ever now ( around 1.5 hours ( combined ) round trip to an internship )

I live in Texas, and A/C is almost a necessity. My car still has the original R-12 in it and I have never used the A/C for periods of over a minute - and this is only when i'm soaking with sweat.

I have read conflicting write ups on converting R-12 to R-134. Some say it can't be done at all.

My vent still blows warm air even on cool mornings, so I'm still puzzled by this. ( with the lever on 'cool' and the A/C off )

So just to reiterate what has been said here, I can pay a shop to collect and dispose of the R-12. What is a fair cost for this ?
Also, what is a fair cost to convert to R-134 ( if that can even be done on my car )

My car is a 1993 Civic DX - pretty close to 130,000 or more miles.

[user removed]

Original R12 is worth a good bit of money. I would see if there is any way to clean the evaporator without messing with the freon. R12 was supposed to be better, with 134 requiring higher operating pressures. System pressure with the system stabilized should be close to ambient temp. If it provides good cold air then why mess with it, if there is anyway to clean the evap without dumping the charge.

We used to un bolt the compressors and leave the lines attached, even when changing the engines, some people would come back and try to tell me their ac worked perfectly before I replaced the engine. Without ever disconnecting the lines they had little ground to stand on, I'd toss some gauges on it if it had any freon and they hadto payme to fix the ac which usually ended the discussion until summer.

regards
mech

[user removed]

Also look carefully for anything that is causing the recirc flap to not close completely, or for any sealing issues like rotten foam. Also makesure the heater control valve is shutting the hot coolant off from the heater core, might even consider clamping off either the supply or return heater hose to see if that helps (valve not shutting off coolant completely). You can do that in the engine compartment, or just connect the supply and return lines and bypass the core altogether, in a reversible way.

It may not be whats wrong or fix whats wrong, but you won't get the heater core hot and get hot air when you don't want it.

regards
mech

[Cd]

Thanks Mech.
The A/C works fine. It's just that I avoid using it, so as not to burn a hole in the sky any larger than it already is.

I want to replace the R-12 with something less damaging to the ozone that protects us.

Any more guesses about what would cause the vent to blow stale warm air vs. cool air* ( *meaning the temperature of the air directly outside the car - I'm not expecting it to blow cold air ... just not hot air ! )
I cleaned out the fan as you guys directed, and you were right. There was indeed lots of leaves and crap in there.
It solved the problem of noise, and the air force seemed slightly better, but the air is still warm ( ????)

[California98Civic]

Originally Posted by Cd

Thanks Mech.
The A/C works fine. It's just that I avoid using it, so as not to burn a hole in the sky any larger than it already is.

I want to replace the R-12 with something less damaging to the ozone that protects us.

Any more guesses about what would cause the vent to blow stale warm air vs. cool air* ( *meaning the temperature of the air directly outside the car - I'm not expecting it to blow cold air ... just not hot air ! )
I cleaned out the fan as you guys directed, and you were right. There was indeed lots of leaves and crap in there.
It solved the problem of noise, and the air force seemed slightly better, but the air is still warm ( ????)

I think Mech called it. When these vents are set to "cold" (not AC) the hot coolant is not allowed jnto the heater core. If the valve clamping off circulation of hot coolant is failing, hot coolant will get into the heater even when you select "cold" vent settings.

[Cd]

AWESOME. Thanks guys. I'm going out to look at the problem now.
Something I really appreciate about this forum is the promptness that you get a reply, as well as the professionalism.
On the Civic forum, I posted a similar question and it goes unanswered for a week, with just guesses after that.

Thank Cali for bringing that up. I guess i glazed over it.

[Cd]

I found these diagrams of the heater piping.
I'm guessing this is the location I need to be looking at - correct ?

[Xist]

I do not think the freon causes any problem unless you have a leak, you just use more fuel.

[user removed]

You have a 22 year old car with working ac and the original R12, you can't do less damage to the environment than you would just leaving it alone and it cost you nothing, and you have an AC for those days when it really gets toasty.

If you turn on the vents, for the first time that day, and car has been sitting outside in texas sun and heat, the air coming out of the vents will be very hot for a while until the parts in the heating system actually cool off themselves.

If the heater control valve is working properly, the heater hoses will not get hot with the selector on cold air. Turn on the valve by selecting hot air and the hoses will get hot, as hot as the top of the radiator.

The heater valve and cable in your illustration could need to be adjusted to completely shut off the flow of hot coolant to the heater core. If that does not seem to work, then just clamp off 1 of the heater hoses going through the firewall and that will shut off any hot coolant to the heater core. Releasing the clamp and temporarily disconnecting the cable will allow you to manually move the valve to see if it is closing completely, if you have to do that manually then set the valve completely shut off then connect the cable and reinstall the clamp to hold it in that position. You should see a different position of the cable in the clamp than where it was before.

regards
mech