Frozen Shut

fit90 wrote:A little trick we used to remove frozen exhaust studs from cylinder heads was to drill a hole through the stud and then just before trying to turn the stud we would shoot a blast of refrigerant such as R-12, R-134a or what ever is available anymore, down the hole in the stud. Same but reverse idea as heating the case.

I used to hold a can of computer air duster upside down around the base of the cylinder until the engine would come loose, that is if the soaks and heat wouldn't do it first.

We had a full cylinder of R-22 up until a few years ago when our home air conditioner started to leak. We emptied the full cylinder just giving it boosts over a month or so until the compressor seals were leaking too much. We figured that the damn thing was old enough (1979 York) to just get it replaced. When the contractor came to replace the AC, he noticed the green cylinder that said R-22 on the side of it and asked if it was full as he would like to buy it from us. He also said "good luck getting anywhere near 35 years out of these new air conditioners, they just don't last as long as the old ones". Same goes for the fridge downstairs that was about 40 years old when it quit, we bought a new one and they said the new one should last about 8-10 years before we'll want to be a new one.