I am condidering purchasing a manifold/guage and a vacuum pump to do my own A/C work, rather than paying someone else $110.00 to service my A/C system. Dose anyone have any experience with the single stage 1.5cfm vacuum pump from Mastercool? I came across one for $118.00 and it seems as though it is a good buy and will do the job of evacuting the A/C plumbing. Thanks in advance.

 

Ok. If no one is familiar with the Mastercool pump. Can someone recommend a good pump that will do the job and not break the bank? Plus what manifold/guage set should I get?

 

For your first go, any of the gauge sets at Autozone, Pep Boys, etc. will be fine. I got mine from Advance Auto for like $70. Works great.

For a vac pump, I got a cheapo unit from Harbor Freight. It was like $10 on sale. But you need a compressor for it.

Before I had that I used my mighty-vac hand pump (about $30 IIRC) and rigged a fitting out of an old R-134 filler hose to put the system under vac. I could pull 11-15" Hg and let it sit to see if it was OK. Took a while. Just drink a beer and pump away.

 

yeah i did the same mighty vac took for ever, then tried the harborfreight type which is just a venturi type but works very well as long as your compressor is big enough.

 

J&B off of ebay..
Good stuff and the best price compared to buying from a refrig wholsale house.
something like this:http://cgi.ebay.com/J-B-JB-ELIMINATO...QQcmdZViewItem

Tal