<e28> brake bomb, AC, & reborn DIYer

[Reid Maynard <reidmaynard@xxxxxxxxx>]

[admin note: this is one of the ones that piled up while i was coping with
a failing disk drive. it's my fault that this posting is now 7 days late --
rpw]

As the (proud?) owner of an 87 535isA, I am use to digging deep for
infrequent repairs. However, lately funds are a little tight. But my
car doesn't seem to understand this; my brake bomb went.

I knew it was going for about 18 months. Shop quoted me 'under $500'.
I drove it with virtually no accumulator assistance for a couple a
weeks - which can get downright scary every so often. I had heard
horror stories about trying to unscew the bomb, but enuf was enuf - I
mail ordered the part and prepared for hours and hours of greasy,
knuckle-skinning, part-breaking, frustration.

Well, I was wrong. In a nutshell, it was quite simple. And I applaud
the previous replacer (original?!) for not over-tightning. Start to
finish, less than 50 minutes! The first time I worked on a car in 18
years! (last time was a valve job on a 1970 Fiat 124 sport coupe, but
that's another story). Of course, my previously slow leaking high
pressure switch, started gushing a few days later, but that's ok, I
picked up a new one at lunch today.

I also have had a (slow?) leak in my ac. After charging, it last about
6 weeks before I would notice it starting not to cool so well.
andother 2-3 months and it might as well be a heater.

The local ind bmw shop said you need, this, and that, and this ($$$$$)
Hell, I can save a lot of $ buy just throwing a couple of lbs of R12
every 4th of July!

Anyway, I was doing this on June 15 (hot early this year in NC) and
have a honda mechanic friend of mine do it at his house. Since my
system was fully discharged, he poked around a little and said -- "ya
know, I've seen these valves wear out, let's replace them and see what
happens" [the valves are where the freon goes in and out of the
system, or something like that, but they are in essence tire valves,
so he replaces the little spring loaded cores] It takes about an hour
to evacuate the system and dump two pounds of R12 into the system.

Guess what, almost 2 months later and it's still VERY cold!

Live and learn.

Perhaps next, I'll fix my 1 1/2 speaker stereo!

Reid Maynard
1987 535isA 243,xxx miles




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