I have a 1982 Volvo 245 wagon in which I have removed the old a/c system. Everything was shot and I am looking to replace everything with new components and I have a few questions. I'm hoping that someone with experience with these cars can help me.

Firstly, I am aware that Volvo has made available a kit to convert over to 134a for these cars which includes a new evaporator that is supposed to work better with 134a than the one that came with these cars. They also include some hardware with this kit and a high pressure hose, but the kit doesn't include the other hoses which makes me wonder how they expect the old, converted system to work with the old non-barrier type hoses.

From what I have been able to gather, in 1990 Volvo went to a larger evaporator to get better performance from the a/c systems and undoubtedly saw the writing on the wall and knew that r134a was going to be a reality and that an upgrade of the evaporator would be needed.

So at this point, I'm considering what is the best course of action. I suppose that it would be possible to fit the heater/evaporator combined unit from a post-90 model car to my 240 and use the stock Volvo larger evaporator, but that sounds like an terrible amount of work and there may be fitting issues with the larger evaporator. In addition to this, the later systems used an orifice tube instead of an expansion valve, but since I'm going to be basically starting from scratch, that shouldn't pose much of a problem.

Has anyone attempted to put the newer-style evaporator in a pre-90 model 240?

Another option is to buy the Volvo factory kit that includes the evaporator that is the same size as the old R-12 evaporator, but designed for r134a.

As far as the condenser and compressor go, I was planning on using a Seltec universal compressor and a parallel flow condenser that is the closest match to my existing tube and fin condenser.

I really would like to get some advice from someone who has done this type of complete rebuild of the Volvo system and not just an r134 conversion. Again, I'm not using any of the old components. I am sort of stabbing in the dark here with the selection of the parallel flow condenser as the Volvos that I have seen all have tube and fin condensers.

Thanks!