ester oil equivalent

My compressor calls for pag oil iso 46 and i was ready to put in the oil
when I thought to myself that maybe its a bad idea.

My car originally was an r12 system and was half ass retrofitted for r134a.
I'm not sure if the oil in it is pag or ester based or a mix of something
you'd find in those quickie conversion kits. In any case i prefer to use
ester based oil in my a/c system b/c pag will react with the residual
mineral oil in my system and create the black death.

I see that ester oil only comes in a iso 100 viscosity.

If my compressor states that only pag 46 must be used would I be playing
with fire to try and use ester?

Thanks

 

At this point any guess you make stands great odds of only making things
worse. Stop, evacuate, flush completely and do a proper retrofit. It will
cost you a lot less time, money and aggravation.

-Stern

 

It depends on what "half ass" means? If the R-12 was not completely
removed, which is the usual recommended procedure for retro-fits (removal),
the PAG oil with R-12 is apparently what causes "black death" - the
chlorine in CFC apparently reacts with PAG badly. POE in a retrofit is
never recommended by the auto mfrs in a retrofit where the old lube is left
in - see: http://www.delanet.com/~pparish/gen-rp.htm and links from it,
and here:
http://www.ackits.com/forum/messageview.cfm?catid=21&threadid=7650&FTVAR_MSGDBTABLE=
but I'm not sure why. The mfrs say that the R-12 petroleum lubricant will
not mix with PAG and will "park", one assumes out of harms way; they don't
say what happens with a mix of POE and petroleum lubricant, which apparetly
do mix.

If you've flushed the system, the specialists seem to recommend POE.

Rgds, George Macdonald

"Just because they're paranoid doesn't mean you're not psychotic" - Who, me??