P38A Air con thoughts.

She's booked in Thurs at a landy indy for a proper(I hope) leak test and refill but with a dye this time. Condenser corners looked fine, clutch is still pulling in so I suspect its low gas but not low enough to shut down the compressor. I Could be talking ball cocks though.
Also ordered a UV torch so I can look for leaks myself.

OK, gonna be a silly question at the end of this post I suspect but just want to be sure before I shell out.
Result from the indy is condenser leak, no problem says I, I'll replace that and bring it back when done for a regass. He informed me that there are two types and suspects mine is the later much more expensive one instead of the earlier much cheaper one. So I've been doing some googling and it appears late 2001 diesels until the end of production did indeed have a different more expensive and hard to find condenser, mine is registered 22/11/2001.
However, island 4x4 state that the earlier one can be fitted IF you buy the earlier compressor to condenser hose(£160 circa) and butcher some mountings and other such bodgery . More googling has turned up some vin numbers of when this condenser change took place and its from vin number YA445076.
Other sellers on ebay for example either don't mention this or say from March 2001 onwards that their condenser doesn't fit.
My vin is SALLPAMW32A462924 so (silly question time) that means it's before the YA445076 doesn't it?.

More googling has turned up a thread on another forum with pics plus some info on LZ too. Regardless of the vin numbers I do have the unobtainable smaller condenser, so I'll have to buy the earlier compressor to condenser pipe awr 5075 , twice the price plus of a condensor and a new earlier condensor stc3679.
The pics on the other forum aren't conclusive but the pic showing the earlier and larger height condensor fitted show it extending down to cover the coolent rad. Looking up through the louvres in the bumper I can see that my condensor is a good 6" above the bottom of the rad.

@RisforRacingnotReverse just went through this whole scenario.
New larger condensor,
New compressor,
New dryer bottle and recharge.
His is 2000 and we had an earlier compressor pipe and still no joy....
It turns out his hevac is an earlier 1998 model so.... Where the R3 relay is we put a jump wire in. It returns full control to the earlier hevac system and voilà it bloody works !!! We also has a spare heater core sensor as his was originally reading - 18°. The replacement reads closer to the real temp. Time will tell if all is good

Mark Piercy said:

View attachment 270384 @RisforRacingnotReverse just went through this whole scenario.
New larger condensor,
New compressor,
New dryer bottle and recharge.
His is 2000 and we had an earlier compressor pipe and still no joy....
It turns out his hevac is an earlier 1998 model so.... Where the R3 relay is we put a jump wire in. It returns full control to the earlier hevac system and voilà it bloody works !!! We also has a spare heater core sensor as his was originally reading - 18°. The replacement reads closer to the real temp. Time will tell if all is good

Click to expand...

Early HEVAC's drove the compressor direct, later ones it was via the relay as you have found.

Datatek said:

Early HEVAC's drove the compressor direct, later ones it was via the relay as you have found.

Click to expand...

As we have learned my learned mate. so he's on the look out for a later hevac then all can be put back to standard

Mark Piercy said:

As we have learned my learned mate. so he's on the look out for a later hevac then all can be put back to standard

Click to expand...

Plenty about from UK. I bought one that the breaker said had a duff display, very cheap. The display was an easy fix