AC Expansion Valve Repair and Setting

[Outlier]

I have found a solution to my receiver drier dilemma. I'm hoping this might help others with their challenges as well.

I read through 50-60 pages of the Four Seasons catalog of Receiver Driers looking for ones that had 3/8 male flared inputs and outputs, and a 1/4 female O-ring switch port. I found three of them.

The first one 33286, although the catalog says it has a 1/4 switch port, it turns out to be bigger than that.

I ordered the second and third ones at Autozone and chose the better fit of the two.

Here are the specs on these.

33309 This unit comes with a compatible low pressure switch installed. It was $52 at Autozone. It could work, but it was about 3 inches taller than the original one. I returned it.

33318 This unit is of comparable size and has the correct switch port to fit the aftermarket switch I bought. It is slightly smaller in diameter than the stock one so I lined the mounting bracket with foam tape (see photo). Price? about $17 at Autozone. Plus switch 35758 (about $5) and harness connector 37219 (about $10), this is a winning combination. This is certainly better than the exact fit from Motorsports ($339).

Datsun 280z's of this vintage used at least three different receiver-driers. The combination I describe should work well if your unit has both input and output on the top, coming off the neck. If yours has the input mid canister you might be better off with a 33286.

I also replaced my condenser with a Silla C8060 (http://www.autopartswarehouse.com/details/QQNissanQQ280ZQQSillaQQA-fs-C_CondenserQQ19751978QQSILLAC8060.html) about $65 shipped. It fit perfectly and was easy to swap.

I replaced my evaporator with expansion valve with the unit from Motorsports (http://www.thezstore.com/page/TZS/CTGY/SAC08) about $209. This took a long time to get, so call them to verify they have it. Changing this did not require removing the entire dash. The instructions are in the factory service manual on pages AC-33 through AC-35. It is time consuming, but I chose to remove all of the duct work and clean it and make new foam seals for every piece. My foam seals were in really bad shape (think powder and sticky goo). Doing this made everything seal better and consequently airflow is greatly improved. The evaporator and expansion valve itself was "close" to being a good fit. This means I had to tweak and re-tweak the copper lines to make them fit up and connect properly, but eventually I got there. All this took this amateur about 13 hours over three days.

Here are photos of my receiver drier setup. The first one shows my original receiver-drier and the 33318 with the switch installed. The next one shows the foam tape in the mounting bracket. The third one shows the harness connector which I spliced into the original plug. the fourth shows the entire assembly and the fifth is the receiver drier installed.

Edited September 17, 2011 by Outlier

[Outlier]

Anybody need an original evaporator with expansion valve? Since I replaced it, it was obviously leaking, but perhaps you could use parts from it to repair yours? If so, let me know.