I have searched for info and opinions about how to get the A/C working on a 1990 240 (a wagon in my case)in the archives of this forum and have had the car checked out at what is considered to be the best radiator shop in my town (Seattle). The background is that when I bought this car in 2000 it had about 117,000 miles on it and the A/C worked, but weakly. Over the next 2 years it faded out completely. I didn't have any spare funds back then I could use to do anything about it so I made do with opening the windows. About 4 years ago I had it checked out at the radiator shop and they told me it had a leak in the condenser, which is totally plausible. I asked about repair options and about switching to HC134a, but they said it will work better if recharged with R12, which they had from recycling. I don't know if they still have R12 available or how much it costs today, but then it was reasonable enough.

After reviewing what I could find in this forum on the subject I discovered a few tidbits that could be used together to hopefully end up with an A/C system that performs pretty well with minimal trouble and expense. These are the ideas I found:

1. A better condenser makes the biggest difference of any single upgrade to A/C performance - from a fellow in Phoenix.
2. Adding an electric fan will allow the A/C to work in city traffic at low speeds.
3. There is a hidden adjustment screw on the stock expansion valve that can be turned out maybe half a turn (if memory serves) and allow the air to be chilled substantially more than the stock system will do.
4. Use R12 and avoid the extra parts and labor expense of doing the refrigerant conversion. And R12 is more efficient anyway. Assuming I can still get R12, of course. I'm pretty sure I can.

To implement this fix I would just need a new more efficient condenser, new drier, all the seals, an electric fan, and some fiddling with the expansion valve. Install parts myself, have the radiator shop vacuum test the system and charge it up with R12. No doubt it would be several weekends worth of work.

I want to run this plan by all you Brickboard experts to see if it seems sound to people with more experience than I have before I start ordering any parts.
Any comments and advice will be greatly appreciated.