Does anyone have any experience with the new Harbor Freight 1.2 cfm (98074-1VGA) or 2.5 cfm (98076-4VGA) electric vacuum pumps for evacuating a Mopar A/C system? Thx

If you want to use it once or twice and then throw it away when it breaks, it might get the job done for you — that's the kind of low-quality Chinese dreck Harbor Freight sells; that's why their prices are low. If you're not interested in the hassles of poor quality, you can probably get much better bang for your buck by shopping for a used high-quality pump in good condition. They're really all over the place. A constant stream of them flows across eBay, and you can probably find them locally at used-tool places or perhaps on Craigslist.

If you do buy anything electrically-operated from Harbor Freight, use it with great care and keep a close eye on it at all times when it's plugged in. The low-bid Chinese factories where HF source their stuff are also the source of most of the counterfeit UL (and other safety approval) labels. Remember the car fires caused by their fuses that didn't.

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一期一会
Too many people who were born on third base actually believe they've hit a triple.

If you have an air compressor, get the venturi vacuum pump....

No moving parts to break.....

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Ed
64 Valiant 225 / 904 / 42:1 manual steering / 9" drum brakes

and not enough vacuum to bother with.

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Charrlie_S
65 Valiant 100 2dr post 170 turbo
66 Valiant Signet 170 nitrous
64 Valiant Signet
64 Valiant 4dr 170
64 Valiant 4dr 225

Thanks for the advice; I'll certainly keep the fire hazard in mind.
I had purchased a venture vacuum pump, but heard that they produce a rather poor final vacuum (0.5"Hg) (and I don't have a big enough air compressor). I only intend to use it a very few times, and HF advertises a very good final (25umHg) vacuum.

I used to do a lot of high (<1E-6 torr) vacuum work years ago, and my experience with well used vacuum pumps has not been very good, as they were pretty cruddy inside and didn't produce nearly their rated vacuum (sometimes by a factor of 25X).

My system probably has a fair amount of water vapor in it after so long and and I'd like to avoid any oil backstreaming - is there an inexpensive trap out you could recommend, or isn't it an issue in AC systems? Thanks Again.

According to my gauge set, I got down to 30" with a venturi vacuum.

Ran it about an hour to make sure all the water got out.

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Ed
64 Valiant 225 / 904 / 42:1 manual steering / 9" drum brakes

I will not get into any arguments about this. I will post my thought's once for anyone to consider.
A Venturi vacuum pump cannot, by its very nature, pull much more then 25 inches of vacuum. The amount of vacuum necessary to remove the moisture from a A/C system is more then 29 inches (depending on ambient temp.). The only way to acuratly measure more then 29 inches of vacuum, is with a micron gauge. Most every mechanical A/C vacuum/pressure gauge, will be off by 1 to 2 inches of vacuum, even a new quality gauge.

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Charrlie_S
65 Valiant 100 2dr post 170 turbo
66 Valiant Signet 170 nitrous
64 Valiant Signet
64 Valiant 4dr 170
64 Valiant 4dr 225

TrueDat

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67Cuda,FAST EZEFI,340cu,CR=10.25,RollerCam&Rocker (XR268HR,#20-810-9)(#1622-16)(EddyRPM#60779,#7576), (MSD6AL,#6425) A904, GearVendorsOD, 8 1/4,3.55:1, ClassicAir

I decided I felt lucky and bought the HF 1.2 cfm pump for $70 on sale. It looks to have only single stage (so 25 um Hg may be optimistic, but I don't have anything to measure vacuum well anyway). It says it has a 1yr warranty, but the guy at HF told me it was only 90 days and wanted to sell me an extended warranty. The instructions also say to bring the system down to 28 or 29" Hg with a recovery system before using the pump and to run it 10 min... (they don't say what happens if you run it more than 10 min or start from atm).

I'll give it a try in the spring; with a little luck it'll work well enough.

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一期一会
Too many people who were born on third base actually believe they've hit a triple.