This CA heat is gonna do me in so I'm gonna replace my compressor soon (93 SC400) and was wondering outside of the compressor itself what other parts I should look to buy and replace along with it, also any tricks or advice for the job itself would be appreciated.

 

--New/Reman A/C Compressor with new mag clutch wheel and new lock sensor included (as a full assembly)
--New Denso A/C Condenser
--New Denso A/C Receiver-Drier
--New O-rings where needed and new Denso lubricating oil before the system is recharged
--Fresh R134a once all the work is completed assuming it has all been converted from R12 already.
--If needed: new A/C Thermal Expansion Valve (TX-V). Toyota/Lexus/Denso stopped making these I believe so get an aftermarket one
--If needed: new A/C Evaporator core (behind the dash and a lot of work to get to
--If needed: clear out original A/C hard lines if any of the old Reciever-Drier pellets got into the system (this happened to me once). These lines aren't made any longer so your mechanic would have to clear them out manually if this ever happens.

If the condenser or evaporator core ever go out of production then the place we as SC owners will need to go to to have them remade is through: The Brass Works. So far we haven't needed to yet.

Also with this heat it cannot hurt to install an OEM used Supra MKIV TT Auto or OEM used Toyota Soarer TT Auto condenser cooling fan assembly and wire it up either with a replica of the Supra MKIV TT's aux fan control system (I detail how to do this in my SC build thread) or with a simpler aftermarket Mishimoto aux fan controller so long as the total amperage drawn is below 18 amps. Mishimoto rates their controller at 25 amps but in practice I found this to be inaccurate and would recommend not exceeding 18 amps draw on one of their controllers.

Granted it may be easier to just get an aftermarket fan in this location if you want to go that extra mile as the OEM condenser fan assemblies are now very rare and hard to find used. SC's all have mounting points for them as standard but our U.S. and Canadian cars never got this additional cooling hardware from the factory. If you can find the hardware, clean it up and wire it up with a custom additional circuit however it all bolts right in.

But focus on just overhauling your standard A/C system first. The SC300's stock engine and SC400's stock engine don't generate the same amount of under-hood heat that the turbocharged variants do which benefit from this additional fan on the condenser. However as the ambient average temperatures are severely hot these days I thought it might be useful to bring this up as well for extreme cases where it might be beneficial to keep the A/C system that much cooler.

 

Appreciate the in depth response I'll definitely consider the new fan but for now focus on just reviving the old system Thank You!

 

Yeah, don't worry about adding an additional condenser cooling fan right now. Most SC's do perfectly fine without one, even most with a turbo. Fixing your stock system and keeping it healthy is the way to go *unless* the need for an additional fan ever comes up.

 

When replacing the compressor, replace the receiver/drier and appropriate amount of oil. That’s all that absolutely has to be changed. Other components like the expansion valve could be changed if you were having issues previously but should be ok in most cases.

I have assumed, but never verified, that the evaporative pressure control valve operated at a different pressure on R12 systems vs R134 supplied systems due to their different gas properties. But finding one of those might prove challenging plus the bang for buck in actual cooking performance. Same goes for the expansion valve.