The Upgrade woes...

I also have been having some difficulty finding certain parts. I have two 16K BTU Cruiair split units that are probably oriniginal (circa 1984). They still use R-22, and I have 10 # bottle so I'm ok for now. One unit is still strong. The other has a badly corroded high pressure side base valve. The associated serive port and purge ports are all but unservicable. When I went to recharge (gauges read very low press) there is a major leak, and not surprisingly at that base valve.

The main Cruisair webside was not helpful, nor was ebay or a general google search. One local Cruisair I contacted heard my plight and responded "looks like your headed for new units".

That is a "FAIL" in my book. Replacement is not my first choice. He might be right, but I want the opportunity to fail first. I intend to relace the base valve and fix the leak. Hey, if I can squeak thru another season with my existing AC, I'm quite happy. If not, then I'll take him a little more seriously.

I don't know if your long list of upgrades includes AC work, but if it does there may be another opportunity to wrestle with tracking down certain parts. Thanks for sharing your experiences too, and good luck!

Interesting. My condensors are water cooled so I would not have had high hopes of finding my part outside of the marine world. I'll have a look, I love to be suprised...

Don't want to be rude, but do you really want to spend good money on ±1984 aircons?
In my 1981 Post all aircons where replaced years before I bought it, but I replaced them all again at very reasonable costs...

Just my 2c

REPLACE IT. Otherwise you'll be wasting freon,time, and money repairing junk. If an a/c unit is over 10 years old and has the issues you're describing, you'll spend money to fix it, then 2 months later the heat exchanger will start leaking or compressor will blow, and then you're buying a new unit anyways and pissed away the money you already spent. The heat exchanger is probably leaking freon now. 1984 units are way past their expected lifespan. 31 years old is practically unheard of. You can put a new unit and you'll have trouble free a/c with it for many years. If you fix junk, you will still have junk and it will break again. There is a direct drop-in for R22 now, which is R22B.

I know, I know. What a bummer.

R22B. Are not the new units using R417 ? What would be the advantage of staying with R22 over R 417 A if I had to replace my units? My current units are model number WJAH16. Is there an R22B drop in replacement for that model?

The new units are R417. I recently replaced a package unit (Marine Air), the air temp with the turbo blower on fast coming out of the vent is 34F, much lower than the previous R22 units. I can say it cools excellent. Much better than the 2 R22 units in the same room which are pumping on 47F air.

FWIW, that's a PASS in my book. Saves me a lot of grief -- and subsequent time, effort, money -- to know when not to bother putting a Band-Aid on something.

If one is working OK and if cash flow is an issue, I might consider replacing only the failing one at first... and then following up on the other one later.

-Chris

Maybe. I suspect you are more likely right than not. But I personally would have no problem at all using a $100 bandaid (discharge base valve) if it buys me even 6 months. My condensors are stacked in the ER, and both are old, have exceeded all reasonable expectations and certainly on borrowed time.

Thing is, one still does work well. Maybe that won't be the case tomorrow, but today it works. It makes no sense to just replace just one. So I will replace both. Given that one works though, that bandaid actually would potentially keep both units, not just one, in service a tad longer.

As soon as you touch the copper piping with a torch to braize a new valve in, the copper is just going to crumble due to age and wear and tear.

Yeah. The key is knowing when to stop life support. The units are DNR (do not resuscitate). If a cheap ($100 or less) hail mary does precipitate a miracle then I will have to have a frank talk with the condensor twins and "allow nature to take its course". In a scrap yard.

PtJudeRI - What did you wind up doing here for the switches. I have same issue on our 2001 50. Am coming across all kinds of one-off crap trying to fix stuff on this thing! Guess we came by you last month bringing our 50 down from MA - put in @ Newport for one night on way down to Chesapeake.

Yep, that is what I am going to do as well as I think the retaining nuts have come loose as the switches "kind of" work. Thanks for getting back to me. Are you the MTU boat up there? eMail for me is EMAIL REMOVED Thanks again!

Not sure this helps, but I just replaced all my interior lights with LED, dimmer modules, and switches from Imtra. I did most of the install, but had Cay Electronics finish off the dimmers and switches. I wasn't interested in pulling panelling...

Same package I have - boat was "Washed Sand" in Boston. Came by you last month bringing the boat down here to Solomons, MD after settlement. Waaay more "projects" than I expected! Love the CATs though!!

Thanks, Seth, been following your posts both here and elsewhere. I will probably do the same thing after I get done with the myriad of other "projects"!!

I remember seeing that boat up here, beautiful Post. Post up a thread to tell us all about her and what you are doing.

Jay