AC charging with Envirosafe

[Ben Swann]

Eric,

I was charging the system in an '87 5000 turbo quattro that I had replaced
the compressor with a used unit, supposedly good.  System still had some
pressure when I took old unit out which had failed due to clutch.

I evacuated the system and charged with a can of lubricant for R12 and then
a can of Envirosafe - I had used this combo before with no problem.  I was
not able to get in a full can since I lost some due to the guage fittings,
but pressures on the low side were reading/normalizing with the high side of
around 100PSI, whcih seems high to me. I charged from the port on the
manifold at the compressor, whcih I assume is low side/suction. I never got
cool air.  Does this mean the compressor I just installed is shot, or is it
possible I just didn't put in enough  Envirosafe.

A basic test of the compressor before I put it in had suction on one side
and pressure on the other - did this with my thumb.  The unit was kept
filled with lube until intallation, but that was after I got it.  It seemed
odd that the low side pressures were ranging from around 80 to 100 PSI, but
the high side was not much higher and dropped to 50PSI when the system was
off, but the low side kept higher pressure even up to 100PSI.  It would be a
bummer for the compressor to be bad, but even worse if I got another unit
and swapped only to find I had not charged it enough or something else.

How much did your system take.  My UrQ only took around one can.

Ben